BIG MAMMA’S BOY

Australia, 2011, 90 minutes, Colour.
Frank Lotito, Holly Valance, Carmelina di Guglielmo, Steve Mouzakis, George Kapiniaris, Maria Venuti.
Directed by Franco de Chiera.

Not to be confused with the Martin Lawrence comedies where he is a detective disguised as Big Momma for his investigations. This one has an Australian spelling for Mamma and is distinctly Australian – or, at least, Italian- Australian.

If you were to put your mind to writing an outline for a screenplay about a middle-aged man still living with his doting Italian mother, with a grandfather in the background, who works in real estate and seems to be good at it, who sings (well) at a club and who encounters a co-worker with whom he falls in love but Mamma cannot accept because she is not Italian and who engineers a girl to come out from the homeland..., then you would probably come up with most of what is in the film. You might be a bit more restrained on the sex angle and relationships though agreeing with the female characters who find the macho office types more than irksome. You would probably have all the food elements. You might not have thought to have some Greek characters as well, especially the boss of the agency. But, the writer and star of the film, Frank Lotito, has – and they are all here. Which puts this in the tradition of Wogboy, Take Away and the Kings of Mykonos, although they were a bit better.

This means that Big Mamma’s Boy has its humorous moments, its stereotypical moments, its crass moments and, ultimately, its heart in the right place. It is not demanding in any way.

Frank Lotito does not create a consistent character, bashful one moment, brashful the next, under Mamma’s thumb one moment, then defying her, in love with Katie one moment and ready to two-time her the next. Maybe, Lotito is actually saying Italian-Australian? men are like this. Hard to know. Carmelina de Guglielmo fulfils all the expectations for Mamma. But, Holly Valance is attractive as Katie and, though she does her best, I was not persuaded that she really loved our hero and could spend the rest of her life with him after their move from Eaglemont to Ivanhoe – a Melbourne story.