The grooms of the film all have their quirks and charms. Miguel is high-strung and sullen, Jonas self-conscious and melancholy. They are well-matched, respectively, to the deferential-yet-firm Óscar and the buttoned-down-and-comforting Rafa. Narciso is political and practical. His love for the distraught Hugo helps to pull him out of his funk. As the old adage goes, they may not be perfect, but they are for each other.

It's important to consider the nature of the genre: the light-hearted comedy with scads of wit and the guarantee of a tidy ending. As is so often the case, the event that turns the dramatic wheel is given little screen time, an irony probably meant to carry philosophical implications: Perhaps it's less about the ceremony than the ordeals that finally get them to the altar.

Like most competent comedies, Queens has serious underpinnings, and Pereira gives these issues appropriate gravitas. Any number of traditionally appropriate boundaries of class, ethnicity and gender are crossed. Communist copulates with capitalist, hireling with mistress, worker with employer and of course, man with man.

But just as in heterosexual dating, the gay lovers seek to resolve parental issues through their chosen spouses. Just as in heterosexual families, mothers and fathers bring their own neuroses to the marriages of their children. Queens never ponders these ideas very long, but neither does it diminish them. Often they emerge through repetition and thematic rhyming.

It doesn't take a lot of speculation to realize the double entendre of the title. The blushing grooms are queens, and so are their crusty, flaky, pompous, vindictive, devoted mamas. Óscar's mother, Ofelia, is a wonderful, buxom, nurturing sweetie-pie who seems vaguely clueless, yet well-versed in the motherly art of passive aggression. Her enormous dog is an emissary for unspoken feelings, repeatedly attacking her future son-in-law with either love or animosity.

Rafa's mother, Reyes, is patrician and bitchy. Miguel's mother, Magda, a hotel manager with firm capitalist resolve, is secretly sleeping with the enemy. Hugo's mother, Helena, a judge, is thoroughly disgusted and disillusioned with marriage. They all have profound impacts on the lives of their sons and, of course, complicate the days preceding their vows.

Nuria, Narciso's mother, is intended to mislead us, but we learn from the consequences of our unwitting complicity. The first time we see her, she is seducing a man on a train and inviting him into the bathroom. She seems ditzy, promiscuous, a basket case. She's always on the phone to her therapist, weeping over her most recent act of bad judgment.

At first, she seems like she's from another planet. But the more we get to know her, the more her intelligence and integrity come through. She's flawed like the rest of us, but not pathetic. Like King Lear's Fool, her wisdom comes out in seeming nonsense.

Queens is an enjoyable experience. It's no Four Weddings and a Funeral or The Philadelphia Story, but it is far more than merely competent. Some of the devices Pereira uses are just this side of corny or too close to derivative, though much of the dialogue is genuinely, maturely funny. Humor doesn't necessarily have to be urbane, but it's certainly a nice break from cat fights, farting contests and dismemberment. Queens is a thoughtful, tickling diversion.

Queens (Reinas) opens in New York and LA today, Friday Aug 25th.
Get more info at the official website

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