I have seen many movies in the past year, some have been wonderful and some have been downright terrible. My Big Fat Greek Wedding has to be one of the best written and best acted comedies I think I have seen in a long time. While the concept of making a movie about weddings is not unique, I believe that those of us who either have gone through planning a wedding or have experiences with family having too much influence in our lives will relate to this movie better than other wedding movies.
This movie is about an ordinary rather plain looking thirty something unmarried woman who comes from a large extended Greek family. All Greek women are expected to go to Greek school, find a good Greek man, marry him and have lots of Greek babies according to the narrator who is also the main character in the movie. This simple premise is what sets us off in almost two hours of raucous humor centered around planning a wedding where a couple coming from completely different backgrounds has to deal with all the external pressures that happen when two people decide to go down the aisle together.
This movie has several very heartwarming and somewhat emotional scenes in it so don't expect it is just a funny movie. Acting in this movie on all characters was very well done and very believable. I thought however that the roles of the Grooms Mother and Father were rather flat and two dimensional. This movie reminded me quite a bit of Father of the Bride starring Steve Martin, except in this case, the writers for Monty Python obtained the script for final treatment. While the writers for Monty Python did not actually write this movie but was instead written by the leading lady, there were some moments where it appeared that the humor was drawn right out of a book of British comedy. All in all I felt that the whole movie had a British feel to it.
This movie will delight you and leave you with a smile on your face. While the audience in the theater was more of an adult composition, I do not remember any nudity or adult language in the entire picture which means this movie is one that the whole family can see together. I would wholeheartedly recommend this movie to anyone who would like a good laugh.
