Author's judgement: 
Hurray!!! Three stars and more thanks to the novelty and continuity of a glorious genre of Italian cinema: comedy. It is about the healthy, clean, honest representation of our country with its merits and its limitations, with its beauty and its hypocrisies where even the ugly and the worst can also be laughed at.
We are talking about You can kiss the groom, just released in theaters, directed by Alessandro Genoese. The story is that of two young gays who, expatriates in Germany (“…it is easy to be homosexual in Berlin…”) decide to get married in Italy. They return to the village (the unforgotten Civita di Bagnoreggio, a topical place in Italian cinema with the scene from Amici Mia where the intention was to level the town to allow the motorway to pass through) and ask the mayor (Diego Abatantuono, a professional of undoubted quality) to celebrate the civil union recently introduced into our legal system.
In his opinion, that insane wedding should not be done and he does not intend to officiate the ceremony, despite its apparent progressive connotation, open and open to others ... yes, but "tourists, visitors ...". From the arrival of the two betrothed and their messy friends in the village onwards, it's all a succession of situations, dialogues and sequences between the paradox and the surreal with an ending that alone deserves a ticket as surprising as it is. The other protagonists are another pleasant surprise and hold up their roles very well: starting with Monica warrior, Christian Caccamo, Savior Esposito (well abandoned the stereotype of Gomorrah), Dino Abbrescia, and finally a good Diana Of the buffalo.
A cast that will find none of them nominated for leading roles at the Oscars, let alone none of them who belong to the usual suspects who now, sometimes boringly, always appear in genre films. At the same time a cast that has demonstrated remarkable acting quality, refined as essential, without smudges and without caricature.
The film is based on a narrative plot that is very attentive to the social, political and cultural context in which our country finds itself today. We speak, in fact, of civil unions, of homosexual relationships, and therefore of how the family first of all and then the institutions and the Catholic Church, deal with this issue. There is also talk of emigration, of the south, of those who like it or not (it seems more unwilling) are forced to go abroad in search of work. All of this is talked about with "feeling", with ironic lightness (and laughs as rarely happens) without smudges and whining complacency. As we have written on other occasions, this kind of film of honored tradition, the comedy, photographs, crystallizes a moment of our society and we read an optimistic watermark that bodes well.
Next week we'll know if Call Me By Your Name has garnered any success at the Oscars. That film also dealt with the theme of a same-sex love relationship as in You Can Kiss the Groom. While in the first it was a question of pure feelings, in this second the strong reference is on the institutional side, on the civil representation - marriage - between people of the same sex. When cinema accompanies the country in this way, it's good for everyone.
