Mambo Italiano

An aspiring writer (Luke Kirby) rankles at staying in the closet with his “roommate” (Peter Miller) and itches to come out to his tradition-bound parents (Paul Sorvino and Ginette Reno). This atrocious little pipsqueak of a movie, directed by Émile Gaudreault and adapted by him and Steve Galluccio from Galluccio’s play, is so bad on every level that it’s hard to know where to start. Under Gaudreault’s maladroit direction, performances are amateurish (even the estimable Sorvino has never been worse), and nothing can breathe life into the script. Galluccio has a negative flair for malaprop dialogue (“Angelo and Yolanda—they’re one of a kind”) and he thinks in phony and unsympathetic character stereotypes. Some writers fail when they don’t write about what they know; others, when they can’t write at all.