SNMR 6.26: "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"

Tonight's SNMR feature is "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" (2002, PG, 95 minutes), starring Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Lainie Kazan, Michael Constantine, Gia Carides, Louis Mandylor, Andrea Martin and Joey Fatone. The film was directed by Joel Zwick.

PLOT SUMMARY: Toula is thirty and unmarried. Nothing wrong with that by most standards. But when you're a Greek woman, unmarried at 30 is considered a failure because Greek women are supposed to marry Greek men and have lots of Greek babies. Toula finally meets Ian Miller and falls in love with him. The problem is that he's definitely not Greek. How will Toula's family handle this? Will they accept the stranger into their family? Will Ian be able to deal with Toula's very large and loud family?

MY OPINION: This is a film that had a lot of hoopla surrounding it when it first came out seven years ago. I never bought into the hype and never watched it until recently. While this is a good film, I can't really understand all of the hype that was made about it, probably because my family is relatively small and spread out all over the country, so we don't regualrly know each other's business.

Nia Vardalos wrote the screenplay and it was nominated for an Academy Award in 2003. She does an excellent job in the lead role. John Corbett is also very good as the man trying to fit in to an ethnic family that is large and extremely close knit. This is a film that expresse the importance of family and family values. It's also about accepting change when change comes along, even if it is not wanted or expected.

The story is very believable and has a nice pacing to it. You almost feel like part of the family.

*** out of *****