Does the girl get the boy? Does her father accept him despite the buzzing of his WASP wings? Does she learn to be less embarrassed of her heritage and maybe try being a little proud? Does it snow at the South Pole? With Cher and Nicolas Cage there was some doubt about the answers to these questions because “Moonstruck” had the space for its characters to see their choices and make decisions, to ponder love and marriage. These Greeks follow a narrow path; all through “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” I kept glimpsing a better movie trying to get out, in which these characters might be given more freedom. After hearing her opening narration I wanted to see Vardolas swimming in more open waters and not just going through the motions of a movie wedding.
The real find here is Nia Vardolas as Toula, who also wrote “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” The script is based on her one-woman show, and as a screenwriter she still has a little ways to go. As an actress she has probably limned dozens of roles in other movies as the best friend/comic relief to more traditional starlets. With her hook-nose and slightly-pointy lip, she is likeable and charming, with good comic timing. A little plump for a typical actress, she’s about normal for a human female, and has a real-world charm and vulnerability actresses usually lack. As the frump-monster at the beginning she is instantly sympathetic, and later her response to her mother’s wedding night advice is perfect.
Corbett, as her boyfriend, is little more than an understanding grin and a soft-spoken confidant. But his absence of aggression towards Vardolas’ parents is refreshing after so many clichés about how movie boyfriends respond to potential in-laws. He tolerates Constantine’s absurd demands more-or-less by patting him on the head and going along. His patience and cheerfulness in the face of his ultra-Greek in-laws is probably realistic. Is he a nice guy or a spineless wimp for going along with all their demands? While his heart is certainly not in the Orthodox baptism, it’s important to notice that he and Vardolas agree to very little they actually dislike. They only bend to the Greek family when it comes to how those things they do like are done; the flavor is Greek but the content is not anathema to the young lovers. Corbett’s own family is so reserved, undemonstrative, and small, that he’s given to smiling at the eccentricities of her clan. As for the others characters, they are mostly “ethnic” first and people second; try to imagine what “Fargo” would be like if everyone had just been given the accents but not much in the way of characters to play.
“My Big Fat Greek Wedding” is gentle, sweet, and sunny. The direction by Joel Zwick is barely noticeable, which is what this kind of light-hearted material usually needs, and the performance by Ms. Vardolas is something special. But the movie could have been more.
P.S. Glancing over the Internet Movie Database’s user comments on “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” I noticed that the positive reviews use proper capitalization, grammar, and make fewer typographical errors than their negative counterparts. This, combined with the numerous comments that harped on how refreshing it is to see a movie not drenched in blood, violence, sex, and multimillion dollar FX sequences, suggests that audiences outside Hollywood’s typically-teenage demographic are flocking to “MBFGW.” Don’t be surprised if it ranks among the highest-grossing PG films of 2002.
P.P.S. Yes, this movie features Joey Fatone of 98 N'Backstreet Boys on the Block, or one of those boy bands. His role is small, as one of Toula's numerous cousins, and he performs it just fine, with a grin and a cheerfulness that are perfectly within the context of the film.
Finished September 15th, 2002
Copyright © 2002 Friday & Saturday Night