American romantic comedies ought to be packaged up and buried in a very large hole and topped with a headstone marked “False Advertising”. I can’t remember how many I’ve sat through, either by my own stupid fault or in some kind of compromise deal (well how else would I get someone to indulge me in watching tripe like Jason X?) only to be left stony faced at the distinct lack of comedy and stony-hearted at the even more distinct lack of romance. Romcoms are generally neither “rom” nor “com” in my experience but rather, anything empty-headed, dull and otherwise unclassifiable gets shoved under this mantle. Sometimes however, something actually sneaks in there and genuinely deserves the title. This is one of those times...for the first time this year(this decade maybe) I’ve actually seen a romcom worth watching!

In essence, My Big Fat Greek Wedding presents you with a very simplistic plot which encompasses the tried and tested Cinderella/Pygmallion storyline once again but mixes it up with some likable characters, some genuinely funny lines/situations and some gentle culture clash ethnic humour which we can all appreciate. The movie opens with dowdy Greek 30-something Toula working at the family restaurant Dancing Zorba’s in downtown Chicago. We are told Greek women have three purposes in life: to marry a Greek man, to make Greek children and to spend the rest of their lives cooking up and feeding Greek food to everyone in sight, but Toula wants something more than that. At 30 years old she has pretty much given up on the idea of romance but that is until (the totally un-Greek) Ian Miller(John Corbett) comes in to her restaurant and she’s captivated. A series of life-changing, nest-flying events later and they’re involved and planning to get married, to the general chagrin of her family and particularly her very traditional father...

The characters are wonderful and the events, although of course not exactly running on any kind of cranially challenging level, for once don’t ask you to dumb down to the level of braindead moron to appreciate them either. When we first meet Toula at Zorba’s she’s certainly dowdy and unattractive and the inevitable Pygmallion transformation occurs as you’d expect but in a ‘real’ sense rather than a Princess Bride/Disney sense of Geek-to-Goddess in 5 minutes. Equally, whilst bordering upon charicatures at times, the Zorba family are all infused with enough of their own individual personalities to steer away from dull stereotypical retreads of what Hollywood perceives a cloying Greek family to be - something you rarely see in comedies, and just lately, even in supposedly serious movies. Oh sure, they’re quirky or it wouldn’t be quite so much fun, nor would the movie gain so much enjoyment from it’s gentle jibing of Greek culture but things like Gus’ belief in Windex as a miracle cure-all for anything from nettle rash to snakebite break away from the stereotype as well as offering plenty of room for the odd laugh out loud moment.