Film Reviews

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

• Rating:
• Director: Joel Zwick
• Starring: Andrea Martin
• Details: US / 95 minutes / (12PG).

An above average, if hardly inspired, romantic comedy, My Big Fat Greek Wedding is based on star Nia Vardolas' one woman stage show. At the start of the movie, Toula (Vardolas) is a frumpy 30-year-old woman, who works in her family's Greek restaurant, Zorba's. As she's never had a meaningful romantic relationship, her incredibly overbearing family wonder whether Toula will ever find a nice Greek boy to marry, feed and have lots of babies with. Nonetheless, Toula manages to get a grip of her life and one change of career later; she meets and falls in love with Ian (Corbett). After a whirlwind romance, the pair decide to marry, bringing us neatly back to the title of the film, which, of course, is Toula's greatest fear. Although it is formulaic enough fare in both its style and delivery (if you've heard one ethical gag, you've heard them all), My Big Fat Greek Wedding remains oddly likeable throughout. Much of this has to do with the energy that the actors andndash; especially Vardolas and Kazan andndash; inject into their characters. Okay, there may nothing really original about it, but this is harmless froth.

Review by Garreth Murphy