In this Italian comedy, a gay man can’t manage to come out to his family. His boyfriend plans to visit them and share his plans for marriage.
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Mattia (Josafat Vagni) can’t force himself to tell his Italian family he’s gay. He tries, but one of them makes a homophobic remark or changes the subject.
Mattia’s friends in Rome know he’s gay. Mattia plans to move to Madrid to start a new life with his boyfriend, Eduard (Jose Dammert). After an embarrassing confrontation between Eduard and Mattia’s father, Eduard pressures Mattia to come out to his family.
When he lies by saying he finally went through with it, Mattia accidentally helps create a situation where Eduard might stop by to ask the family for Mattia’s hand in marriage. The comedy keeps increasing from there.
Director Ivan Silvestrini and screenwriter Roberto Proia use nonlinear storytelling, with the basic plot happening over a day but constant flashbacks informing viewers of what led to the current problems. In many cases, Mattia’s own insecurities and self-loathing obviously contributed to his not coming out even more than anyone else’s cruelty or insensitivity. However, that cruelty and insensitivity both occur often.
This constant mixture of past and present evokes a sense that Mattia keeps finding himself in a repeating situation he needs to resolve. To paraphrase U2, he got stuck in a moment and couldn’t get out of it. Some viewers will find the structure annoying or confusing. While I got lost a couple of times, I still think the heavy use of flashbacks was a good choice.
All the characters suffer from flaws, some more than others. Yet the actors give all the characters depth and humanity, making viewers understand why Mattia would care about them and what they think of him. Tell No One is in Italian, with English subtitles.
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