Carl the Critic: Talks about "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"

Expierence: For obvious reasons, movies about weddings are becoming popular, and hoping to get my fair share of the love decided to talk about a movie that I found myself liking even though I had little expectations for. "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," is exactly as the title implies, and like "Bend It Like Beckham," and "The Namesake," it has an idea of environment influencing our traditions. It certainly is portrayed better in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" because the thing that this film has that those don't is a love story of a tree (or branching) structure that moves from the roots to the tree top. It's beautiful, funny, heart warming, and satisfying. This Oscar ^TM nominated gem should be on the list of everyone who is getting all excited about the marriage of Prince William (or as the ladies call him "Prince William the Gorgeous") and Kate Middleton (or as the ladies call her the "[beauty] that stole my future husband.")

Story: The story circles around the life of Toula Portokalos a thirty year old woman who looks like she is in her fifties. Toula works at her families Greek restaurant the "Dancing Zorba," which is where she meets the love of her life Ian Miller, a school teacher with gorgeous following hair like some jungle hunk... [cough, cough] I mean he is a school teacher with nice hair. So now Toula has to convince her conservative father to do things that are not according to family tradition, not just marry Ian but also to go to school and get a college education in computer science. Of course this requires a lot of trickery from Toula's mother to her father making it seem like it was all his idea (because every man wants to think everything is their idea.)

Over time, Toula changes her look that matches her age (but she is still sort of ugly but it is an improvement) and catches the eye of Ian who happens to be walking by. He eventually recognizes her as the woman who served him coffee and was awkwardly staring at him and his gorgeous long hair... [cough, cough] I mean... she was creepily staring at him. But he doesn't seem to mind as much now she looks better but now another problem arises, Miller is technically not a Greek name (I say technically for reasons that are explained in Critique) and because of Toula's Greek family traditions, Toula has to marry someone who is Greek.

Critique: This is a "chick flick" of sorts but unlike most of the other films I have talked about recently it is original, and it is guy friendly as well. It is a movie that shows a more humorous side of the Greek life that you only see in Fraternities or Sororities. But The film has moments that are predictable, and it is fair to say that Ian and Toula get together in the end of the movie and not call it a spoiler alert (because it is in the bloody title.) Moving on, Toula's Father has a habit of taking any word (no matter how common) and finding the Greek word of origin. He finds one for Ian Miller's last name and it turns out that Miller means "apple."

If there is anything that this movie has that I do like is that it uses comedy gags very well and balances out the comedy with some emotion and drama. The film uses some classic comedy gags such as "the fallback," where a joke is said once and some how we come back to it again, "spontaneity" where things happen at random,  and"false philosophy" (otherwise known as "filosophy" or "filosofy") where something that is not logical has facts and reasoning to support it (for example the sky is blue because someone took a gigantic paint brush and painted it blue, and they missed a few spots which makes the clouds). 

Overall: I gave "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" a 9.2 out of 10 because it was funny, well structured and the originality, but the main problem was it's slow, and predictable. I highly recommend this film to every one not just wedding enthusiast. Speaking of weddings, I would like to congratulate Prince William, and Kate Middleton, and hope their marriage is long and happy.