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My Big Fat
Greek Wedding
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picture to order this DVD
As Always, a review of The
Film and The DVD (extras)!
The Film:
My Big Fat Greek Wedding was
for me, a
pleasant surprise. At the risk of being too honest: that is to say I had a
lot of fun watching it, when I thought it would be a total bomb. After
such a flawed initial publicity campaign, it looked
like little more than another cliché wedding comedy. Yet by summer, through word of
mouth, audiences learned it was a very funny comedy. Sure, this Greek wedding may be no
different than an Italian one, or Jewish, or Chinese, or even a Las Vegas
elopement. That's the whole point; in the end, love is all that matters.
In that quest for love, we're all the same. The
story is about a Greek daughter named Fotoula Portokalos (nicely played by
Nia Vardalos, who wrote the script, based on her stage play). Her
old-fashioned Greek parents are trying to get her married to a nice Greek
boy, with no results. In comes Ian Miller (John Corbett), and it is love at
first sight. She starts seeing him in secret, explaining her absence as a
"pottery class" she's taking at the nearby school. Then he proposes, and suddenly her
secret must be told. Will her family take a liking to the non-Greek
Miller? Well, of course they will...eventually. Ian
goes through all the tribulations you'd expect, yet are funny anyway. He
gets the typical spiel from Fotoula's father that he should have asked for
his permission to date his daughter. "Can I date
your daughter?" Ian asks after-the-fact. "NO!" answers her
father, as if it was stupid to even ask. Meanwhile, Fotoula's protective
brother has fun with the groom-to-be, telling him a Greek word for
"Thank you" that actually means, "Hey, nice breasts!"
It's an old joke, though it still works. The
truth is, the majority of the jokes here are not any different than if you
made a story about an old-fashioned Italian family, or Jewish, or
African-American, or any other number of nationalities and religions.
Trouble is, many of the above races have forgotten to be able to laugh at
themselves. The only time such humor is allowed is when one of "their
own" does the rib-tickling. Fortunately for Vardalos, then, that she
based this film on real life: her own memories, of actual family
experiences. Sure, it may be slightly exaggerated; that's all
part of good comedy. What made this
comedy #1 in the box office was not the jokes, however; it was the
romance. In all of two hours, we see Fotoula's childhood, her first
meeting with Ian, their first date, parts of subsequent dates, their
engagement, and even the wedding itself. It seems like a lot to cover in
just two hours, though Vardalos writes the script with precision, giving
just enough back story to these two love birds to make us truly feel for
them, and want for them to get together. There's a moment in their first
date, when Fotoula confesses that the actual first time they met was when
she looked frumpy, only to have Ian say he remembers that day, though he
doesn't remember her looking "frumpy" at all. This leads to one of the most genuine-feeling, endearing date conversations I've ever heard. In the end, this film is a
pleasant surprise. After "chick flicks" like Divine
Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Crossroads
that same year, I was very apprehensive to see another chick flick, so soon. This film may
have far less celebrity muscle than the above flops, yet I feel that will change.
There's no denying the feeling that we'll be seeing more of Nia Vardalos
in movies. As long as she keeps writing as well as acting, I'm all for it.
The DVD:
Not much to say for the DVD, sadly. There's commentary by actress/writer Nia
Vardalos, actor John
Corbett, and director Joel Zwick, and both full screen and
widescreen anamorphic versions offered. However, that's about it. Buy it
if you liked the film.
Click
picture to order this DVD
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copyright 1999-2001; all rights reserved. Picture of DVD cover is used only for the purpose of review (and to make shopping for
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