My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)

Starring Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine, Lainie Kazan, Andrea Martin.
Directed by Joel Zwick.
Written by Nia Vardalos.
Distributed by IFC Films.
96 minutes.

LVJeff's Rating: 7/10

Something Borrowed

Once in a while, something humble and not terribly extraordinary comes along and strikes gold. For instance, J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" book series didn't start out as much more than an imaginative mixture of tried-and-true fantasy elements told in the form of children's stories. They took off with the public, perhaps unintentionally spotlighting their audience's general hunger for the recycling of familiar elements and old formulas. We see that certain stories need to be re-told, again and again, and that the good ones exhibit just the right balance of fantasy and truth that appeals to us all as human beings.

It also helps to have fortuitous timing. "Harry Potter" emerged during a time when a strong children's fantasy hadn't been seen for at least a decade. And now My Big Fat Greek Wedding has arrived at a time when more and more of Hollywood's products are geared to the young and younger, when its comedies base humor on poorly set-up gross-out jokes, and when its characters feel farther and farther removed from our actual lives. Consequently, screenwriter Nia Vardalos's five-million-dollar romantic comedy has slowly gained momentum, raking in, at the time of this writing, 95 million dollars in the course of 21 weeks.

How did this happen? My Big Fat Greek Wedding has little new to offer. It's a very straightforward semi-autobiographical story about a Greek woman with a wacky family living in the states while still deeply entrenched in its ethnic heritage. She falls in love with a non-Greek man, and therein lies the conflict. It features a lot of silly moments, plenty of caricaturing, and doesn't venture anywhere near unpredictable territory. Yet, somehow the movie has struck a nerve with audiences across the U.S.

I think much of its success has to do with how very easy it is to detect the truth in this statement by Vardalos: "When I look back, all I can say is that I'm incredibly lucky. Everyone has a family that they think is funny enough to put on film, but I am actually getting that opportunity." That is to say, we can see that the movie isn't based on some grand concept that's been tinkered with to death by studio execs. The movie gives us the feeling that we're sitting around the storyteller as she tells us about her family and all their crazy personalities and relationships with each other. And we can smile knowingly because family dynamics are easily relatable.

The movie has other strengths that, when listed by themselves, don't appear to be that strong -- a broad appeal, relatively clean humor and language, a sense of poking fun that does not come off as mean-spirited, a warm and intimate atmosphere. But when they are compared to the offerings of the other available comedies of the summer -- Mr. Deeds, Men in Black II, Austin Powers, Pluto Nash, Serving Sara, and more -- they become that much more appealing and, perhaps more importantly, refreshingly adult.

So it's nice to see a movie like My Big Fat Greek Wedding succeed. Although not revolutionary in any way, it's a film that makes the case for simple, honest, old-fashioned, uncontrived comedic storytelling. Maybe it's somewhat sad to be able to say that something old feels fresh and funny again -- it implies that everything else out there isn't up to par. But, then again, it's better to say that than to say nothing out there feels fresh and funny at all.

©Jeffrey Chen, Sep. 5, 2002

Home | Feedback welcome