Nia Vardalos – Toula Portokalos John Corbett – Ian Miller Andrea Martin – Aunt Voula
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Cert PG
Well, I saw this when feeling sleepy and it could explain my lack of enthusiasm for it when I began watching it but I didn’t warm to it too well and laughed only slightly. Audience participation wasn’t massive until about half way through the film so I am guessing that some of them had the same problem as me. There was a group of giggling girls who had had a few drinks before coming in and were laughing before the film started and they certainly found it funny once they had attentively settled to it.
The premise of the film was very simple, boy meets girl, boy is American and girl is Greek and from a Greek Family who are very traditional and can only foresee their youngest daughter marrying a nice Greek Boy. At the start of the film, the heroine is the ubiquitous ugly duckling as an obstacle to marriage.
Her Father bleats to the rest of the family about her meeting a suitable Greek Husband and he is always telling his daughter that she
looks old and has been since she was fifteen years old.
She has always been different she confides in the audience, and we see her attend school in a flashback of dinner time, surrounded by American Blonde Beauties (apparently all blonde and all American!). These girls make fun of her by asking her what she is eating to which she replies “Mousaka” uncertainly. Blondie retorts “Moose Ca Ca??” and her friends laugh uproariously.
This sets the tone for the rest of the film, all the jokes have a tendency to be rooted in taking the mickey out of the Greek Culture versus American Culture. Although there are jokes about the Americans too to perhaps even the playing field. I felt the humour was often quite nasty, the Americans were seen to be “Dry as Toast” from Tula’s father’s perspective and they were completely shocked by the idea that someone could come from a different culture or country to them.
Tula’s father is seemingly unaware of his childrens’ talents and is only concerned for them to get married and settle down. He is not in a hurry to get the son married off, saying he has plenty of time. But annoyingly, he never seems to acknowledge his son’s talents overtly, nor his daughter’s. Ok, he bought the daughter a house when she got married but forgive me, he never did the simple things like recognise his childrens’ strengths. (Although I was faintly moved by him buying her a house, somehow the superficiality of it just shone through). Perhaps that was just how he was supposed to be portrayed. The father has an endearing (annoying?) way of finding the Greek root of every single word even if it means he will just talk nonsense at times.
Tula fights her way into College, having to get her stubborn father’s permission, where she undergoes a bizarre and quite frankly boring makeover, (yawn, seen it all before or at least it feels like it). Her Mother and Aunt succeed in persuading fuddy duddy Daddy to think that it was his idea that Tula work in the Travel Agency Business to help her Aunt.
Meanwhile Tula had already spotted the only man she seems to have ever spotted who was a) not Greek and b) not ugly in some way! While she was an ugly duckling waitress in Zorba’s Dancing, her family owned business. He keeps passing by her in the travel agency working. But she is annoyingly, and unrealistically shy around him supposedly because she is in love with him but it left me cold. I felt that as she had grown in such confidence, going up to total strangers and befriending them at College and was strong enough to fight for her right to work in the Travel Agency that it was unlikely she would hide behind a water filter when she saw him. Bit Over the Top.
As a leading man I am sure he should be great, but he didn’t seem to have the charisma needed for a romantic lead in a film. I must have been spoilt watching him in Sex in the City as Aidan, Carrie’s boyfriend as I felt like he was the same character exactly and Tula started to sound and act like Carrie!.
The rest of the film leads up to the impending marriage of the two leads but I found myself not really caring about any of the characters, I couldn’t warm to them and frankly couldn’t care less if they got married or not.
This reaction to the film surprised me as a friend who went to see it recommended it, having heard that it was one of the funniest films of the year. Hmm. Don’t think so.
I have Greek Friends who although they dance similarly to these people are ten times more glamorous and I don’t think that they would behave like this at all. I am not sure they would approve of the fun made of their culture either. But maybe I’m just a fuddy duddy at heart too. (I just came back from my oily baptism into the Greek Church today!).
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Comedy - Director: Richard Boden, Mandie Fletcher, Martin Shardlow - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Hugh Laurie, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed, Tim McInnerny, Tony Robinson, Rowan Atkinson
Comedy - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: Tessa Peake-Jones, Buster Merryfield, David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst
It's not surprising thatMy Big Fat Greek Weddinggrew more popular over the course of its ... more
US theatrical release (whereas most blockbusters open big and then drop precipitously)--not only does it have believable situations and engaging characters, but th...
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It's not surprising thatMyBig Fat Greek Weddinggrew more popular over the course of its US ... more
theatrical release (whereas most blockbusters open big and then drop precipitously)--not only does it have believable situations and engaging characters, but the...
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Everyone in the Portokalos family worries about Toula. Still unmarried at 30-years old, ... more
she works at Dancing Zorba's, the Greek restaurant owned by her parents, and smells like garlic bread. Her days are drab and dull, just like her hair, her clothes, ...
![My Big Fat Greek Wedding [DVD] [2002]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78528744.jpg "My Big Fat Greek Wedding [DVD] [2002]")
May 21st, 2003
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