Here's one of those films where you wonder if they just took a camera to someone's house, because it rings so true.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is the semi-autobiographical account of a Greek woman who falls in love with a non-greek. In the planning of the wedding, we the audience are given the perspective of the groom, who gets a crash course in being Greek.
This is a completely character driven comedy. The father (Michael Constantine) is obsessed with making sure everyone knows that all modern words (even Japanese) come from Greece. That and Windex glass cleaner can cure all that ails you. He's dead-set against his daughter marrying a non-Greek
The mother is the rock of the family. Once she has accepted what her daughter has decided to do, she starts working on the father. Or in her words, "The man in the head of the family, and the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants."
What makes this film feel so real, is that as you look around the scene, each character in foreground and background are each in their own world. But this isn't a made up world, these are Greek-Americans. I know because a very long time ago I was cameraman and chief engineer on a Greek cultural TV program. I've met these people.
The character that doesn't work is the groom (John Corbett). He's very easy going, and willing to bend to the demands of his bride's culture. But some where in this movie, he should have had a fit. At least one to show how much he was sacrificing for this woman. Because this scene does not exist, the groom comes off as a weak man.
This one weakness aside, My Big Fat Greek Wedding is one of the few gems of the cinema for 2002. This film's screenplay should be nominated for an Academy Award. It's very much worth your time. You are probably going to laugh very hard.
