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This is a nice, occasionally funny feel good movie. Set in Chicago Toula (Nia Vardalos) might just as well be living in Frumpsville USA. She is a dowdy 30-year-old working in her Greek families restaurant imaginatively named Dancing Zorba’s. Working as a, in her words “seating hostess” or waitress to you or I, her life is going nowhere fast and her traditional Greek family are truly worried that she will never get married.
This film follows a very safe formula, it relies on getting it’s laughs from the eccentricities of the family and the stereotype of a family that is unashamed of its Greek roots something that Toula has spent most of her life trying to play down with flashbacks of her school days where she dreamed of joining the cool blond girls on the top table for lunch. Toula describes the role of a Greek woman as being, to marry a good Greek boy, produce Greek babies and to feed everybody.
One
day into the restaurant walks Ian (John Corbett) and Toula is smitten, however despite laughing at her feeble joke he walks out without saying a word to her. Toula then makes some changes in her life, going to college to take a computer course her confidence grows and she begins to transform her looks with contact lenses, a new hairstyle and some modern clothes. Eventually she gets a job in her aunt’s travel agency and she begins to enjoy her work. When Ian sees her again there is an obvious attraction and the two begin dating behind her families back. The rest of the story charts their relationship as it blossoms into a marriage proposal and the impact that this has on the family as they prepare for the traditional Greek wedding and come to terms with the fact that she is not marrying a good Greek boy.
I did not really enjoy this film the first time that I watched it, it had been much hyped and my expectation level was high. Second time round it was far more enjoyable and I was able to enjoy the characters more. There is some great material in this movie and the quirks of some of the characters give it a certain charm that is appealing. Of these the ones who provide the most laughs are; Toula proud father who claims that he can relate any word back to it’s Greek origins and uses Windex to cure all ailments, his mother who has been brought over to live with them from the old country and continually attempts to escape, the aunt who is the life and sole of the party and claims to have had a lump removed from her neck which contained her dead twin hardly the thing you share with the new in-laws and finally Toula brother who delights in setting up Ian with supposedly safe Greek phrases which have entirely different meanings.
There are some great scenes in this by far the funniest are when the whole family are gathered together, the first when Ian gets to meet the whole family and the second when his WASP parents arrive for a quiet dinner to be faced by a lamb being roasted on a spit in the front garden and a host of relatives all with kids bearing the same names.
Having been married to a Greek Cypriot I did wonder whether my own experiences had helped in the enjoyment of this film as some of the characters seemed quite real based upon my own experiences of family life and family weddings, certainly it is well observed with the obsession with feeding people and the entrepreneurial nature of people who run small family businesses.
This is a nice easygoing comedy which most of the family can enjoy, it caries a PG rating and runs for 90 minutes in total. The DVD comes with some unimpressive extras such as Cast Biographies, Feature Commentary, Trailer, Greek School Trivia Track, Soundbites and Production Notes but nothing to get excited about. Rumour has it that a comedy series is to follow, whether it manages to reach the heights of this movie remains to be seen, somehow, if they do not get the strength in depth that the film enjoys, I doubt it.
I picked this film up as part of a buy 5 for £30 at HMV a few weeks ago and Amazon have used copies advertised from £3.50.
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