A big fat Greek smash hit - Reel World - My Big Fat Greek Wedding - Movie Review

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 2003 by Wes D. Gehring

"MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING," Nia Vardalos' autobiographical tale of a crazy Greek-American family getting crazier when she falls in love with a non-Greek, easily qualifies as the "feel good" movie of 2002. While shot on a modest budget of $5,000,000, the film's domestic box office gross has gone past an astounding $200,000,000! Whereas other pictures are credited with having commercial "legs" if their box office numbers do not drop off more than 30% in the weeks succeeding general release, "Greek Wedding" actually had its biggest grosses during its 22nd week in release. Fittingly, this people-pleasing phenomenon was fueled by strong word of mouth.

With equal appropriateness, the story's ethnic Cinderella nature is rivaled by the actual American fairy tale origins of the property. Actress and sometime producer Rita Wilson, whose family background is also Greek, saw Vardalos' one-woman comedy show in a nightclub and was immediately smitten with her Greek "life and hard times" to borrow a phrase from James Thurber. Anticipating the missionary-like zeal of future fans of the movie, Wilson returned a second night with husband Tom Hanks. He turned out to be equally impressed, and the couple approached Vardalos about her preparing a script, to be produced by their production company. Vardalos, nothing if not prepared, already had a screenplay in hand.

The resulting film, like many other instant screen classics, works on several interrelated genre levels. First, Vardalos' character (Toula) begins as the proverbial ugly duckling, underappreciated by a large extended family who see her as an aging (she's 30), unmarried failure. Her self-directed makeover into an attractive, politely assertive young travel agent scores points as a modest, but very entertaining, ethnic American take on "My Fair Lady."

Second, the film is a multifaceted look at romantic comedy, from the slapstick love story of a young couple (Vardalos and television's John Corbett), to those chaotically humorous first scenes between the young man and Toula's off-the-wall family. These latter segments, so comically central to the film, also play upon a common fear during any courtship: "I'm from the mother of all dysfunctional families." For instance, while no one in my Irish family used Windex glass cleaner as a magic elixir (as does Toula's father, played by Michael Constantine), my grandfather enjoyed "welcoming" any date I brought to dinner with a little margarine to the nose--executed with a butter knife dexterity that would have impressed even Zorro's family.

This says nothing, moreover, of Toula's inspired Greek mother (Lanie Kazan), who equates love with overfeeding the family. Again, "Greek Wedding" hits upon a pop-culture universal. For example, how is all that extra moussaka and lamb any different from my Irish mother's practically force-feeding me extra rations of soda bread, corned beef, and cabbage? When I expressed concerns about becoming fat, she admonished me with, "Our family is never overweight, only husky." I am also reminded of an early scene in Billy Crystal's underrated "Mr. Saturday Night" (1992), where he encapsulates a loving Jewish family gathering focused on food with the comic observation that gravy--not blood-flowed through the veins of all the women present.

Kazan's "Greek Wedding" performance steals the show for many viewers. Of course, she has practically made a career of playing this universal type--the dominant ethnic earth mother-with my previous favorite being her Jewish Brooklyn matriarch in 1982's "My Favorite Year." Naturally, part of this Kazan screen persona is controlling the male, which she often orchestrates in "Greek Wedding" to assist Toula. Indeed, Kazan's comic take on family dynamics generated the biggest laugh on each of the three times I saw the picture: "Man is the head [of the family, but] woman is the neck, and she can turn the head any way she wants."

A third reason "Greek Wedding" is such a winner is that the film embraces basic populist tendencies--the belief that people are inherently good and ultimately do the right thing. For instance, Toula's boyfriend is a romantic Job in the outrageous behavior he puts up with from her family. Conversely, this train wreck of a Greek clan ultimately embraces this WASP outsider. I was reminded of pivotal populist director Frank Capra's screen adaptation of "You Can't Take It with You" (1938), where another zany, but loving household has one seemingly normal daughter who falls in love with a nice, but ever-so-traditional, fellow. In fact, the ultimate generosity of Toula's family at the young couple's wedding, as defined through the father's comically poignant speech (where he finally puts his obsession with Greek word origins to good use), might be labeled "You can't take it with you."

Populism also helps "Greek Wedding" avoid what Wilson called the "cringe factor." As she explained to The New York Times, "You can take your kids, and you can take your parents. This is really an old-fashioned kind of movie." However, populism does not always play well with critics, who often find the genre too sweet and/or corny. After all, that's why disparaging reviewers used to complain about "Capra corn." While there has been some of that tone (see the Sept. 23, 2002, New Yorker), "Greek Wedding" has generated more critical hosannas than one might have expected.