To the NFT Sunday afternoon with Owen and Tall Paul to see the delightful Spanish comedy REINAS (Queens) showing as part of the Lebanese and Ghoul Film Festival. The initial spur was the mouth-watering thought of three Almodovar actresses in the same film: Carmen Maura, Marisa Paredes and Veronica Forque. However the film would have been well worth a viewing whoever had been it!

It's the eve of Spain's first multiple gay wedding and the nerves of 5 of the grooms are also felt by their mothers. Nuria (Veronica Forque) is the mother of politician Narciso (Paco Leon) and she is wrestling with her compulsion to have sex with men whenever the mood takes her! Narciso is going to marry Hugo (Gustavo Salmeron) whose mother Helena (Mercedes Sampietro) is thrust into being the unwilling judge at the wedding which is taking place in the plush hotel managed by Magda (Carmen Maura) who is attempting to fend off a strike by the kitchen staff which will ruin the hotel's reputation in the eyes of the massed media. It doesn't help that the head chef who is leading the strike is also her extra-marital lover. Magda is also the mother of Miguel (Unax Ugaldo) whose stylish, fashionable apartment is suddenly occupied by Ofelia (Bettiana Blum) - and her enormous shaggy dog - having flown in from Buenos Aries to be with her son, Miguel's boyfriend Oscar (Daniel Hendler). Meanwhile film actress Reyes (Marisa Paredes) is having to confront the fact that her son Rafa (Raul Garcia) is marrying Jonas (Hugo Silva) the son of her gardener Jacinto (Lluis Homar) who despite many years of working for her has never even set foot in the house.

Confused? You will be... The fun escalates when the future partners and in-laws argue, fall out of love then back in again as their paths intersect in the hours leading up to the big day. While watching it I could almost see the film being remade by Hollywood as a vehicle for the likes of Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, Bette Midler, Jill Clayburgh and Susan Sarandon.

However the director Manuel Gomez Pereira kept the action whipping along with hardly time to remember who was related to who and the script by Yolanda Garcia Serrano and Pereira showed the deftness of plotting of classic screwball comedies allied to a great warmth and corazon. And of course there was the excellent cast, once again proving the greatness of Spanish screen actresses. I would love to have this on dvd - it's out in Spain but unsurprisingly without English subtitles.