OxfordPress.com

Grade: C+

Verdict: Maybe just send a card and a gift.

Details: Starring Nia Vardalos and John Corbett. Directed by Joel Zwick. Rated PG for mildly risque humor and sexual situations. One hour, 35 minutes.

See it: Local theaters and showtimes for [an error occurred while processing this directive]My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: The first words you hear in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” are, “You oughtta get married soon. You're looking old!”

That's Gus (Michael Constantine), speaking to his Greek-American daughter, Toula (Nia Vardalos).Gus is from the Old Country where, as Toula wryly notes, “Nice Greek girls are supposed to do three things in life: Marry Greek boys, make Greek babies and feed everyone until the day we die.”

At 30, Toula is clearly behind schedule. She works at the family restaurant, Dancing Zorba's, and hides behind thick glasses and the sort of schlumpy clothes Rhoda Morganstern wore before she got her own show. Afraid her life will be on hold for the next 50 years, Toula starts taking classes at a community college, despite her father's objections. She then takes charge of her, well, presentation. She gets contacts, wears make-up, restyles her hair and stops wearing stuff the color of baby food. And whattdaya know: handsome, funny, loving, WASP-y Ian (John Corbett, from “Sex and the City”) falls in love with her.

As you probably guessed from the title, they decide to marry. The rest of the movie is about how, as the wedding preparations become ever more frenzied, Toula learns how to love her loud, large, boisterous, vulgar-but-lovable family instead of being ashamed of them.

The film is based on Vardalos' one-woman autobiographical play and backed by none other than Rita Wilson (who is Greek-American), and her husband, Tom Hanks (who isn't). The best part of the picture is the first 40 minutes, leading up to Ian's proposal. The saga of the-ugly-duckling-turned swan is generally a sure-fire story arc, be it here or in “Spider-man.” But then the film turns its attention to the wedding itself, and everything congeals into a mess of vulgar-but-lovable jokes coupled with Daddy Angst about the cross-cultural horrors of his daughter marrying outside the tribe, so to speak. It might help if he talked to Tevye, who faced the same problem over 30 years ago in “Fiddler on the Roof.”

You can see how Vardalos's rueful observations about her single life would work well on stage. But when the movie moves into the familiar territory of an in-your-face crazy (but lovable) family, it loses its edge. Not that the formula doesn't work, but there's no getting around the fact that formula is what “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” is.

A bigger problem is that the central couple don't click. It's refreshing that Toula's make-over doesn't leave her looking like Catherine Zeta-Jones. She simply looks like a reasonably attractive version of herself. But the difference in the looks scale (he's a ten; she's maybe a seven) intrudes because there is so little chemistry between the two. Vardalos has a delivery reminiscent of Ellen Degeneres, so she knows how to endear herself to us. But Toula doesn't have much of a personality beyond being self-deprecating and having a hard time coping with her family. Corbett pretty much stands around looking amused or starry-eyed. It's the sort of role they usually make girls play.

Without a movie-sized presence as the focus, we turn to the supporting cast, who are only too glad to fill in. Constantine is an appropriately imposing Poppa, while Lainie Kazan is appropriately supportive as his wife. Says she: "The man may be the head of the household, but the woman is the neck. She tells him which way to turn."

Best of all is SCTV alum, Andrea Martin as Toula's pushy, know-it-all aunt. You don't even recognize her at first, but you wonder, who is this actor with the terrific timing? It's sad that someone as talented and hilarious as Martin is can't find her own place in the movies.

Bottom line: this is an affectionate and good-hearted movie that could've been a whole lot better and could've been a whole lot worse.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, (none)