Starring: Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Lainie Kazan, Michael Constantine, Elena Kampouris, and Andrea Martin
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Runtime: 94 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2016
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This American romantic comedy is a sequel to “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” (2002). Fourteen years after the first film was made, which was an unexpected success, the movie shifts emphasis from the trials and tribulations of Toula Portokalos, who fell in love with Ian Miller, a non-Greek Protestant teacher, to focus on the difficulties of Toula’s and Ian’s relationship now that they are married. Most of the key players in the original film play the same parts in the sequel.
In the original movie, Toula (Nia Vardalos) and Ian (John Corbett), fought hard to have their relationship accepted by family and friends. Now, they have a teenage daughter, Paris (Elena Kampouris), who is stressing them both. Paris hates the intrusion of her Greek family into her life, and Toula is pushing her husband aside emotionally so as to play “super-mommy” to Paris, which is resented by both her daughter and husband.
Paris works unhappily in a Greek restaurant owned by her parents, and she is about to graduate in high school. She receives one University offer to stay around her parents, and another to move away from them, and she is conflicted personally about which one to accept. Her Greek identity and her family’s reinforcement of it are very much part of her problem. To make things worse, Toula’s mother and father find out that they were never married officially. That causes problems. The papers signed on Toula’s parents’ wedding day were not valid, and they have to be married again to make everything legal.
The film places heavy emphasis on the style of comedy supplied by the original cast, and there are lots of good cameo spots for Maria (Lainie Kazan), Gus (Michael Constantine), and Aunt Voula (Andrea Martin). The movie’s plot-line has Maria and Gus (Toula’s parents) working out how they feel about being married again. Their predicament obviously affects other members of their Greek family, and Maria wants Gus to woo her properly next time around.
There is a good-hearted feel to the movie as a whole, and there is a déjà vue quality to the film that reinforces the comic impact of the original. It deals, like a lot of movies, with the comic aspects of cross cultural tension and conflict, but it never laughs at the expense of what it satirises. Rather, it shares the fun, and that fact underscores the enjoyment value of the movie as a whole, which made the 2002 film the success it was.
The movie sports a self-deprecating style of humour that works well and its script runs at a brisk pace. We are told comically, without a hint of racism, for example, that for the sake of efficiency: “Telephone, Telegram, or Tell-a-Greek”. There is also a collection of staged comedy scenarios that keep the film moving forward energetically. We see, for example, a stern and dowdy-looking, (Greek) grandmother, who secretly places bets on-line, and who then appears with a glamorous make-over on the big wedding day when Maria and Gus finally agree to tie the knot again.
This movie is an uncomplicated one that laughs at itself as much as it does at others. It is very much an ensemble piece, and everyone in it works hard to leave a smile on the face. The film totally endorses love, marriage, cultural tolerance, and family togetherness, but plays loosely and lightly with life’s various ups and downs.
Solid drama is by no means the order of the day with this movie, and it is never the Director’s (Kirk Jones) intention to supply it. This is just an enjoyable movie where Greek music, food and culture are in abundance, family togetherness is never in doubt, and the plot-line is unexceptionally thin.
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