A Rom-Com Franchise That Needs to End
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 is uncomfortable to watch, squandering whatever goodwill the series once had.
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In 2002, My Big Fat Greek Wedding became a genuine phenomenon. Written by and starring the then-little-known Nia Vardalos, the film made nearly 50 times its modest $5 million budget at the domestic box office, and remained in theaters for an entire year. As formulaic as the plot may have been—a woman falls for a man with a different background—the script was clever, coupling familiar romantic-comedy tropes with culture-clash humor. Clichés about the Greek American lifestyle blanketed the script, but they charmed thanks to an enthusiastic ensemble cast. As my colleague Megan Garber observed, the movie “was a big hunk of baklava: layered, nutty, shockingly sweet.”
Whatever fluffy lightness the original film contained has largely deflated in the two decades since—and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, the latest sequel after a forgettable second installment and a short-lived TV series, marks the franchise’s nadir. With a shapeless plot that tediously unfolds, the film is uncomfortable to watch. Even Vardalos, who directs for the first time, seems to struggle with mustering actual interest in her own material.
That’s somewhat baffling, considering how much potential the premise has: This time around, the Portokalos household is traveling home to Greece, because Toula (Vardalos) wants to fulfill her late father’s wish of giving his journal to his childhood best friends. The journey is set up to be a bittersweet one; Toula speaks of how her father’s death has left the family “scattered,” especially as her mother has begun suffering from memory loss. This trip, then, offers her a chance—much like the first film did—to come to terms with her Greek heritage while bonding with her eccentric extended family.
But any semblance of emotional stakes disappears beneath a flood of stale one-liners about, once again, how overbearing Toula’s relatives can be, and just how utterly Greek they all are. Her brother whips out the family’s famous curative Windex and quips about the Greek roots of English words. Toula’s aunts insist to Toula’s daughter, Paris (Elena Kampouris), that the matchmaking skills of Greek matriarchs are “better than the apps.” An extended bit at the airport finds the family jammed into a revolving door, unable to move because—har har—there are just so many of them. At best, the punch lines are merely tired. At worst, they’re tasteless: A twist involving a long-lost relative is introduced with a clumsy incest joke about Toula being attracted to him.
The result is a static film in which nothing happens and no one changes. Everyone is a collection of displayed quirks or declared characteristics. Paris deems herself “a mess,” despite all evidence that she’s a normal college kid, just one with a penchant for wearing crop tops. A new character—a cousin who’s been named mayor of Toula’s father’s hometown—is a caricature of Greek pride, announcing all Greek things to be “No. 1,” a habit that gets old fast even in a film series built on cartoonish 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 through his surroundings, eventually (and inexplicably) befriending a local monk who helps with Toula’s quest to find her father’s old friends—a plot point that feels shoehorned in to give him something to do.
At 91 minutes long and shot on location in Greece, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 should have been a breezy postcard. Instead, no amount of sequences filmed during golden hour can distract from the story’s clunkiness. The climactic wedding between two locals—because the title requires justification—inspires only apathy, given that it involves two characters who say no more than a few lines of dialogue, and whose story is tangential to the Portokalos family’s. It’s a miracle any of the visitors remember their names.
Romantic comedies rarely beget good sequels, because stretching a love story out tends to diminish the fantasy inherent to the genre’s success. The few that have worked—Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again comes to mind—build on nostalgia for the original tale and deepen their fans’ understanding of the characters they fell for in the first place. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 could have done the same; it already has the picturesque locale, for one thing. But it squanders whatever goodwill it once had, ignoring its vibrant characters in favor of awkward goofs.
In one scene, Elena learns that the frequently uttered Greek word sopa means “shut up”—and that it doesn’t always mean “be quiet.” Sometimes, it’s used to express delight; other times, it’s delivered to convey a sentiment akin to “that’s enough.” The term is apparently meant to be a fun running gag—there’s a fine line between shouting the triumphant Greek expression “opa” and crying “sopa,” after all—yet by 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 homecoming. Twenty years in, the franchise should take its own advice: Sopa, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Joke’s over. That’s enough.
