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Review by Jack Foley |
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AS wildly excessive as its extravagant title suggests, My Big Fat Greek Wedding
has been one of the sleeper hits of the year in America, where audiences seem
to have fallen for its saccharine-coated charm.
Based on the autobiographical one-woman show that its star, Canadian native
Nia Vardalos, wrote and performed on-stage in 1998, the movie lovingly chronicles
the obstacle-strewn path taken up the aisle taken by Vardalos’s frumpy
30-year-old, Toula, when she decides to marry a non-Greek man.
The obstacles in question are represented by Toula’s larger-than-life
family, led by Michael Constantine’s fiercely patriotic father, her scheming
mother and all manner of aunts and uncles, although it is clear from the beginning
that this Cinderella tale will conclude with a romantic flourish.
Much of the fun, therefore, is to be found in Vardalos’s witty observations
of all-things Greek, as well as the relish with which it is performed. Some
of the digs at old-school European values and ideology particularly hit the
mark.
But while the movie is enjoyable in places, and contains several wry observations
throughout, it is also marred by its fairytale tendencies, which render it
as sickly sweet as the icing on a wedding cake.
The men in the audience are likely to want to ditch this bride at the altar
before too long, while the women (and this is, first and foremost, a chick
flick) may also tire of the giddiness on show, particularly late on.
John (Sex and the City) Corbett’s high-school teacher, Ian, is also impossibly
perfect, a bland, modern-day Prince Charming who doesn’t even have the
decency to temporarily lose Cinderella before getting to the ball. Their relationship
never once feels threatened, no matter how much Toula’s family interfere.
It is little wonder, however, that proceedings become so entwined in fantasy,
as the film’s path to fruition bears all the hallmarks of a dream come
true. It was produced by Tom Hanks (no stranger to sentimental outpourings),
after his wife, Greek actress Rita Wilson, became so impressed with the one-woman
show herself.
And in spite of its failings, there is much to admire, as this is clearly
a labour of love for all concerned.
Vardalos makes an appealing, if unlikely, lead, while Constantine steals the
show as the constantly bemused father, who runs the Dancing Zorba café
in downtown Chicago, believes every word in the English language is derived
from a Greek equivalent, and produces Windex as a cure for everything.
F or girls’ nights out only, this is likely to have hopeless romantics
rushing to get to the box office on time.
