My Big Fat Greek Wedding is the delightful tale of a young Greek woman who falls for a non-Greek man, much to the chagrin of her loud Greek family. Toula (Nia Vardalos) is 30, unmarried, pretty dowdy, and works at the family restaurant. She has dreams and aspirations, but her family is so all-encompassing that she can’t seem to break out. Then one day, in walks Ian Miller (John Corbett), a tall, handsome teacher who is most definitely not Greek. Although she knows he is totally unattainable, Toula is inspired to make something of herself and enrolls in college, gets her degree and convinces her crazy Aunt Voula (Andrea Martin) to hire her at the family travel agency. Toula, armed with her education and self-confidence, becomes a transformed woman. She sheds the thick glasses and boring clothes and starts to feel good about herself. Then the miraculous happens - Ian Miller walks by the travel agency and spies her and the pair is instantly drawn to one another. They date, begin to fall in love, all the while Toula hides him from her family. They simply wouldn’t understand. When he asks her to marry him, she drops a bomb. Her family is nuts! Does he still want a life with her? But Ian is smitten and is willing to do anything to be with Toula, including getting to know and love all of her family, getting baptized into the Greek Orthodox Church and even foregoing a fancy wedding at the country club to marry Toula in her family’s church. Needless to say, Ian’s mild-mannered and wealthy parents aren’t too thrilled, but neither are Toula’s. They can’t imagine that this non-Greek interloper is taking their daughter away, but once they meet Ian and see his devotion for their daughter, all the ill feelings melt away.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is an adorable movie, a little independent film that shocked Hollywood with its success and went on to be the largest grossing independent film to date. With mega-couple Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks producing it, and the comedy of writer/actress Nia Vardalos, the film was a recipe for success and even today, a decade later, still has all of the appeal it first did. Anyone with relatives can appreciate it and you can double that appeal if you’ve ever gotten married. Vardalos and Miller are magical together, but the rest of the cast is no slouch either. Lainie Kazan and Michael Constantine brilliantly play Toula’s parents, while Andrea Martin steals the show as her Aunt Voula. Gia Carides and Joey Fatone (N’Sync) play her crazy cousins and Vardalos’ real-life husband (and the inspiration behind the story), Ian Gomez (Touch, Cougar Town), plays Ian Miller’s best friend.
Even though this is the 10th Anniversary Special Edition, there aren’t many special features in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. You’ve got a handful of deleted scenes, the original commentary with Nia Vardalos, John Corbett and Director Joel Zwick, and a retrospective with Vardalos and Corbett, which is delightful. The transfer to Blu-ray looks okay, but it is nothing spectacular. There were times when I noticed a number of artifacts in the film that really should have been cleaned up, but weren’t. Even considering that, if you don’t already have this precious film in your collection, this is the version to pick up because the 30-minute retrospective can’t be found anywhere else and it lots of fun.
