**/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras C
starring Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine, Lainie Kazan
screenplay by Nia Vardalos
directed by Joel Zwick
by Walter Chaw Destined to be one of those much-touted Hollywood discovery stories, Nia Vardalos's one-woman play "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was seen by Rita Wilson (Mrs. Tom Hanks) and ultimately conceived as a film for veteran bad-TV director Joel Zwick (Hanks's "bosom buddy," as it were). The results are predictably sloppy: all expansive gestures, big emotions, and ethnic sitcom generalities that were handled with more intelligence and wit by Moonstruck. The sad reality of My Big Fat Greek Wedding's stultifying predictability and stand-up sensibility–what plays well as a monologue translates clumsily as film narrative–is that there are enough broad stabs at overbearing mothers and in-law tensions that folks will come away from the film mistaking a warmth for their own experiences with an overabundance of affection for My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Toula (Vardalos) is a mousy, unattractive wallflower working at her parents' Greek restaurant when the man of her dreams, Ian (John Corbett), wanders in for a gyro. Swiftly undergoing a minor makeover, applying for community college, and getting a job at a travel agency, Toula is soon reunited with Ian, and only their wacky culture gap stands in the way of eternal wedded bliss.
The film's sources of comedy are reliably lowbrow and obvious (apparently Greeks are more emotionally expressive than WASPs), and the performances vary from over-practiced (Vardalos) to underwhelming (Corbett) to extraordinarily obnoxious (Michael Constantin as an overweening father, Andrea Martin as a big-mouthed aunt)–but My Big Fat Greek Wedding skates by on the strength of a pretty good pace and the comfort inherent in works of art free of controversy.
There is no need for anything resembling an active viewership, as the picture is the quintessential vacuous moviegoing experience: a summer movie for the more chronologically mature and more independent film-oriented crowds who disparage mainstream audiences for demanding the same from bigger-budgeted but no less cacophonous fare. Originally published: August 23, 2002.
THE DVD
by Bill Chambers HBO won the home video rights to My Big Fat Greek Wedding and releases the picture on DVD just before Valentine's Day. Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and unmatted fullscreen versions on the same side of a dual-layer platter, the transfer starts off overly grainy, remaining so until the lengthy opening-credits sequence has ended. The cleared-up image is bright and relatively clean, though unspectacular; ditto the 5.1 Dolby Digital soundmix, which is so undistinguished there's nary a difference between it and the 2.0 surround track. The Home Country-flavoured score, by Chris Wilson and Alexander Janko, is typical of the other audio elements in that it rarely reaches around behind the viewer. LFE info is AWOL.
The DVD's only item of bonus material besides a set of cast bios is a film-length commentary featuring stars Nia Vardalos (pronounced Varr-dal-ose) and John Corbett in addition to director Joel Zwick. A group effort, Vardalos nevertheless dominates (hey, it's her show), discussing Windex (natch), the roots of many of My Big Fat Greek Wedding's jokes, and her family's reactions to the word-of-mouth sensation. Zwick becomes a glorified teleprompter (his offhand observation "Now here's Lainie Kazan" triggers a lengthy anecdote from Vardalos) and Corbett hasn't much to contribute, and for a yakker with three participants, there's dead air in peculiar abundance. The white keepcase is a nice, matrimonial touch.
95 minutes; PG; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced), 1.33:1; English DD 5.1, English Dolby Surround; English, French, Spanish, Greek; DVD-9; Region One; HBO
