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My Big Fat Greek Wedding
***
Cinema Releases - September 20, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate PG. USA.
96 minutes. Directed by Joel Zwick. Written by Nia Vardalos. Starring Nia
Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine, Lainie Kazan, Andrea Martin,
Joey Fatone, Fiona Reid, Bruce Gray.
"My Big Fat Greek Wedding" opened
in the States this spring, and has been travelling and expanding across the
country's screens so persistently that as I write this, in late September,
two seasons after the film's opening weekend, it remains in the top five
at the American box office.
It's not hard to see why. The movie is full of
punchlines and odd little behaviours that are designed to push crowd-pleasing
buttons, remind us of people we know and set up moments of recognition to
get theatrical laughs. Even the title announces how buoyant and loveable
the material strives to be.
The film stars Nia Vardalos in a role she wrote
for herself; she plays Tula, one of those women who's approaching thirty,
is a teensy bit on the tubby side, doesn't often bother with makeup, lives
with and works for her parents and is sensitive to that pesky question of
when she's going to find a nice Greek husband. All she wants to do is expand
her horizons.
Somehow Vardalos manages to convince her overbearing
parents (Michael Constantine, Lainie Kazan) to not freak out when she enrols
for some computer courses at a local college, and it's a turning point for
her. She dresses better, walks around happier and manages to attract a tall,
handsome, sensitive guy called Ian, played by John Corbett from "Sex and
the City". We all know how lucky women are when they catch guys named Ian,
so you can imagine how happily this romance blossoms. Marriage plans are
on the horizon soon enough.
Corbett's character is not Greek-American, though:
he's a plain old Chicagoan, and so his relationship with Vardalos sets off
a lot of hemming, hawing and near-fainting with her traditional parents,
as well as much buzzing, gossip and interference among her large, eccentric
family. "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is one of those cutesy ethnic comedies
in which the hysterical aunts and uncles all whoop and make the sign of the
cross when comments set them off, where ancient pearls of wisdom are quoted
and mothers say things like, "Eat! When I was growing up we didn't have
food!"
Sometimes the movie gets embarrassingly far into
sitcom territory, and its pace skims over key parts of the romance, signalling
that the filmmakers are interested in little than covering bases of sweetness
and then rushing to more jokes. I also found myself cringing at every scene
involving Corbett's parents, played by Fiona Reid and Bruce Gray as sour
embodiments of middle-class manners, who talk real low and seem to be made
uncomfortable by any little touches of liveliness. Some of the members of
Vardalos's family are written with genuinely original quirks, such as the
dad who thinks a squirt of Windex is the cure to any ailment and the lunatic
grandmother who wanders around screaming about "Bloodthirsty Turks!" -- but
even these often feel like they've been laid on top of the material to supply
the players with enough idiosyncrasy.
The thing is, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" just
about works. We can see the wheels turning, and we might resent it sometimes,
but this is still a nice little picture, made by bright and friendly souls
with a lot of good cheer. Joel Zwick, who directed, gives us a lot of snugly
composed, warm-looking shots, and keeps a good track of everything that's
going on as multitudes of relatives pop in and out of frame. The screenplay
and performance by Vardalos contain a lot of the lonely woman and madcap
ethnic farce stuff we've seen before -- this movie is not nearly as much
fun as "Moonstruck", or even an episode of "Goodness Gracious Me" -- but
the way she reels off so much information about Greek families, and the way
her eyes look in those sad early scenes when she's dreaming of a more exciting
life, reveal that there are elements of truth beneath all the clichés.
That inkling of sincerity counts for a lot.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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