My Big Fat Greek Wedding (*)
review by Jon Waterman

This is the story of a Greek woman who, getting on in years (30s – look out!), is pressured to find a husband.  Well, she finds a man she wants to marry, but HOLY CRAP!, he’s not Greek!  Will the family come together.  Will the parents accept his parents.  Will her parents accept him?  Will she accept her parents decision to accept him or not accept him?  Will we walk out of the theater?

We nearly had a big 10-4 on that last one there.  Let me tell you something.  I like my movies to be universal.  I understand that they can’t always be such.  But if they can’t, then I would appreciate the effort to help me out in imagining the situation.  Put me in the characters’ position as much as possible.  (Please, no cross-dressing jokes).  We are pretty much left to assume what being a Greek woman nearing middle age while living in her parents while surrounded by the rest of her Greek family full of characters is like.  I felt no sympathy.  I felt no empathy.  I felt no –pathy of any type.  I felt sleepy, but not –pathy.

The star of the picture is Toula (played by Nia Vardalos, who also wrote this thing).  We are meant to believe that she is so ugly and has such little esteem that she cannot land a man.  Very early in the movie, she was dressed down and didn’t look appealing.  However, for most of the movie, they accentuated her features and, I think went against what they were trying to say and made her look good.  The point of this may be that Nia is just fishing for compliments in reviews.

So, she meets this American guy (played by John Corbett, who you would know from “Sex and the City” or “Northern Exposure”).  They fall in love and I lose interest.  There’s really no longer any tension.  I never get the feeling that the wedding will be called off.  I never get the feeling that these two actually care what their respective families think of their respective selves, respectively.  Oh, I felt tired, but not tension.

Let me tell you something about the director.  He’s not normally a feature film director.  In fact, this is practically the first non-TGIF related project he’s worked on in recent memory.  He’s done directing work on all your favorite hokey ‘90s sitcoms from ABC.  You’d be amazed.  By the way, his name is Joel Zwick, and Bronson Pinchot (not in this movie) appears to be his idol.

Meanwhile, we got boy band member, Joey Fatone, doing who knows what in this movie.  Why he was cast boggles my mind.  Andrea Martin is funny for what it’s worth, which isn’t enough.

The movie made me laugh a few times near the beginning, and the ending had a nice little zing.  But the middle was pure fluff.  Unless you’re a woman in your 30s or older, you probably won’t find this funny or good or fun to watch.  You’ll probably just want to take a nap instead.  I’m going to close with some clever wordplay.  Check it out:  “'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' was My Big Fat Waste of Time.”  Take that, movie!

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