My Big Fat Greek Wedding is one of film’s minor miracles. Nia Vardalos’s good-natured, Hellenic-themed romantic comedy and its first sequel have earned more than $450 million worldwide, against a combined budget of $23 million; there’s also a TV series.
The original 2002 film was nominated for an Oscar; it’s unimaginable that this messy third instalment could repeat that trick.
The big idea at the heart of Vardalos’s screenplay is to send the Portokalos clan to the homeland for a reunion, possibly to scatter the ashes of the late family patriarch but also to track down his former childhood chums. Really, it’s all a ruse by a wily young blue-haired mayor to reseed a depopulated Greek mountain village. But wait, asks the film, can’t incoming Syrian refugees do the same job?
Further subplots concern a long-lost brother. There’s some business with a tree. There’s a blocked water source. Returning busybody Theia (Andrea Martin) is plotting to get Paris – the daughter of Toula (Vardalos) and Ian (Corbett) – back together with her ex-boyfriend.
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Damp jokes, postcard views and an occasional goat prop up the sprawl of storylines. One potential source of humour is the notion that these remote villagers may be as modern as the interloping Americans, but that idea is quickly obscured by everything else.
Vardalos unwisely foregrounds minor and new characters at the expense of herself and Corbett, who are, after all, the franchise’s main attractions. (To be fair, it’s no worse use of Corbett’s time than his recent stint on And Just Like That.)
Everyone on screen looks as if they’re having the holiday of a lifetime. Barry Peterson’s camera picks out sparkling seas, verdant mountains and much merrymaking. Off screen it’s a very different matter. Watch and wonder how the cheery original could have spawned such a catastrophe.
