Review: Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!

Awards Daily
MONTREAL FILM FESTIVAL WRAP UP 2009
by Stephen Holt

On a lighter note the marvelously catchy titled “Oy Vey, My Son is Gay!” provided a welcome comic counterbalance at the FFM, as it’s abbreviated.

Sold-out screenings with turn-away audiences “Oy Vey” lined up the straight and gay, Jew and goy audiences, and enveloped them in a big, warm, gay embrace.

Hopelessly, unabashedly retro, how can you not love a film that gives both Bruce Vilanch, Carmen Electra and Laine Kazan the roles of their careers?

Kazan has been waiting all her life, since going on as Barbra Streisand’s understudy for “Funny Girl” on Broadway, for this great character. As Shirley Hirsch, she chews up all the scenery in Hollywood as a ferocious Vot Else? Jewish Mama Rose who can NOT Believe her adorable boy-chik son Nelson (John Lloyd Young) is gay. Once you get over that very ’70s premise, Eygeny Afineevsky’s “Oy Vey” could actually garner the long overdue veteran Kazan a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. She’s THAT good! And Bruce Vilanch plays the straight uncle. Yes, he does. And yes, he can. Carmen Electra plays the “beard” who Shirley & family mistakenly THINKS Nelson is going to marry. Oy Vey, indeed!

I hope all these wonderful, diverse films are soon seen in the US.