Oy Vey My Son Is Gay!! (US 2010)

The Gist: 

A gay man comes out to his family. A family that is not merely Jewish, but are instead JEWISH! His boyfriend is already out to his family who are similarly not merely Sicilian, but SICILIAN! The two families must learn to accept each other as the boys look to not only to live a life together, but to do so as adoptive fathers. 

Comments: 

The acting and production are more or less okay, but over all the movie is not so much more or less okay as much as it's boring. 

Boring for a couple of reasons. It is not merely an "I'm both gay and ethnic and ain't that a hoot" comedy, but one doubled, so that both gay guys have over the top families allowing for a lot of over the top ethnic jokes, and frankly there's a very low limit to how many Jewish and/or Italian jokes can be chucked at the audience before it gets monotonous. 

The other issue pushing it towards dullness is that the focus of the movie is primarily on the Jewish parents, dealing with the "shock" of their son being gay. What did we do wrong? How could he do this to us? My son better be the "man" of the relationship!  How will my gay son affect my social standing in the community? Why is he choosing to embarrass me this way? The usual predictable stuff, that has been rehashed repeatedly in this type of movie to the point where I could not be bothered to care about anything happening on screen anymore 

Women: 

Several 

People of color: 

Not really 

Gratuitous nudity 

No

• Director: Evgeny Afineevsky
• Writers: Evgeny Afineevsky, Menahem Golan
• Actors: John Lloyd Young, Jai Rodriguez, Lainie Kazan, Saul Rubinek
• 90 min
• IMDB

Let My People Go (France 2011)

The Gist:

After a very bad day at work involving a dead man, a bag of money, and a huge fight with his boyfriend Teemu, Reuben leaves Finland to go home to Paris to his family and their assorted problems and strife just in time for Passover.

Comments:

This movie is an example of a “I’m both gay and ethnic, and ain’t that a hoot!” comedy. Think “My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but where the protagonist is gay and there (usually) isn’t a wedding. If done right, it can be amusing. If not done right, it can end up just a lazy collection of gay and ethnic jokes.

In this case the movie lays it on extremely heavy with the "I'm Jewish" humor, but for the most part it comes across as inoffensive in intent, as Reuben's family argue and grumble, providing most of the drama as he tries to deal with both them and his boyfriend. 

Ultimately it’s a cute, if unsubstantial, movie, with cute actors in unsubstantial roles. Not required viewing, but not bad if you do. I'd say something to play in the background while multitasking doing something else, but given that it is subtitled (dialogue is in Finish, French, and English) that may be a bit hard to do. 

Women:

Yes

People of Color:

Nope

Gratuitous nudity:

A couple of minor incidental butt shots

• Director: Mikael Buch
• Writers: Mikael Buch
• Actors: Nicolas Maury, Jarkko Niemi
• 96 min
• Finish, French, English
• IMDB