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In 2002, My big Greek wedding has become a real phenomenon. Written by and starring the then little-known Nia Vardalos, the film done almost 50 times its modest $5 million at the domestic box office and remained in theaters for an entire year. As formulaic as the plot may have been – a woman falls in love with a man with a different background – the script was clever, combining familiar romantic comedy tropes with culture clash humor. Clichés about the Greek-American lifestyle invaded the script, but they charmed thanks to an enthusiastic cast. Like my colleague Megan Garber observedthe film “was a big piece of baklava: layered, nutty, incredibly sweet.”
Whatever fluffy levity the original film contained has largely deflated in the two decades since – and My big Greek wedding 3, the final sequel after an unforgettable second installment and a short-lived television series, marks the nadir of the franchise. With a shapeless plot that unfolds tediously, the film is uncomfortable to watch. Even Vardalos, a first-time director, seems to have trouble generating real interest in his own material.
It’s somewhat confusing, considering the potential of this premise: this time around, the Portokalos family is returning home to Greece, because Toula (Vardalos) wants to fulfill her late father’s wish to give his diary to his best friends of childhood. The journey promises to be bittersweet; Toula says her father’s death left the family “scattered”, especially as her mother began to suffer from memory loss. So this trip offers him a chance – just like the first film – to reconcile with his Greek heritage while bonding with his eccentric extended family.
But any semblance of emotional stakes disappears under a flood of stale lines about, once again, how overbearing Toula’s relatives can be and how completely Greek they all are. His brother comes out the famous healing Windex of the family and jokes about the Greek roots of English words. Toula’s aunts insist to Toula’s daughter, Paris (Elena Kampouris), that the Greek matriarchs’ dating skills are “better than apps.” During a long stay at the airport, the family finds themselves stuck in a revolving door, unable to move because…Har Har-There’s only so much two. At best, the punchlines are just tired. At worst, they’re in poor taste: a twist involving a long-lost relative is introduced by a clumsy incest joke that Toula is attracted to him.
The result is a static film in which nothing happens and no one changes. Each is a set of displayed quirks or stated characteristics. Paris considers herself “messy”, despite all the evidence that she’s a normal student, just one with a penchant for wearing crop tops. A new character – a cousin who has been appointed mayor of Toula’s father’s hometown – is a caricature of Greek pride, announcing that all things Greek are “no.” 1”, a habit that gets old quickly even in a series of films built on caricatured portraits of Greek pride. Even Ian (John Corbett), Toula’s husband, is reduced to a parody of a supportive spouse. He spends much of his screen time wandering his surroundings, eventually (and inexplicably) befriending a local monk who helps Toula in her quest to find her father’s old friends – a point of plot that seems to give him something to do.
Lasting 91 minutes and filmed on location in Greece, My big Greek wedding 3 should have been a light postcard. Instead, no sequence filmed during the golden hour can distract from the awkwardness of the story. The climactic marriage between two locals – for the title requires justification – inspires only apathy, given that it involves two characters who only say a few lines of dialogue and whose story is tangential to that of the family Portokalos. It’s a miracle that all the visitors remember their names.
Romantic comedies rarely spawn good sequels, because prolonging a love story tends to diminish the fantasy inherent in the genre’s success. The few that worked…Mamma Mia! : Here we go again comes to mind: building on the nostalgia of the original tale and deepening their fans’ understanding of the characters they fell for in the first place. My big Greek wedding 3 could have done the same thing; he already has the picturesque location, for one thing. But it squanders all the goodwill it once had, ignoring its dynamic characters in favor of clumsy goofs.
In one scene, Elena learns that the frequently spoken Greek word soup means “shut up” – and it doesn’t always mean “shut up.” Sometimes it is used to express joy; other times it is delivered to convey a feeling similar to “enough is enough.” The term is apparently meant to be a funny gag – there’s a fine line between shouting the triumphant Greek phrase “opa“and cry”soup“, after all, but in the end it also felt like a constant reminder of how weak the story’s momentum is and how little the film tries to say about family and the act of coming home. house. Twenty years later, the franchise should follow its own advice: Soup, My big Greek wedding. The joke is over. That’s enough.
