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MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING Send This Review to a Friend
The "fat" in the title is gratuitous, but presumably capable of luring more people to the film than simply "My Big Greek Wedding" would have accomplished. Either way, the film that stems from the autobiographical one-woman play which Nia Varadlos wrote and starred in is a sometimes amusing but cutesy romantic comedy that involves a Greek-American, 30-year-old woman from a large, demonstrative Greek family entourage in Chicago with a handsome young man whose background is strictly white bread. How can these two marry with such ethnic differences enveloping them?
You can bet that the film, adapted for the screen by Ms. Varadlos, who also plays Tula, the prospective bride in question, is filled with exaggerations that some Greeks may find amusing, but others may recoil at. One has to accept that Tula, smitten by high school teacher Ian Miller (John Corbett) has to lie to her family to cover up dating a non-Greek by saying she is taking a pottery class. This provides the excuse for a typical joke when her domineering father (Michael Constantine) mutters, "The Greeks invented pottery." One need only know that Lainie Kazan plays the mother to complete the mental picture of what goes on in this relative-laden household of a self-made man who owns --what else?--a Greek restaurant. Tula's brothers get a kick out of teaching Ian wrong Greek, so that when he wants to invite people into the house he repeats innocently in Greek, "I have three testicles."
Vardalos has charm and a warm manner as Tula and Corbett plays Ian as a relaxed, confident open person who has a mind of his own and isn't cowed by the oppressive family or the father's idea that he should be approached traditionally and asked for his daughter's hand. He is willing to be baptized in a Greek Orthodox church (a funny scene) and submit to a lavish Greek wedding. Nor does he worry about his mousy parents who are quietly overwhelmed by it all as the film mines humor from contrasting the two families. John loves Tula and that's that--he'll do anything to please her.
Director Joel Swick has the good sense to rely on the material and go for understatement rather than trying to match the family overkill with overkill of his own. Although set in Chicago, the film was shot in Toronto (I recognized one well-known restaurant as a car passed on a quiet street). The film should eventually wind up being shown in Greece, where it will be interesting to see what moviegoers there make of their Greek-American counterparts as satirized here. But "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is full of good will toward all no matter how much it tries to be funny at everyone's expense and it emerges as moderately enjoyable with some good comic high spots. An IFC Films release.
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