| My Big Fat Greek Wedding | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Joel Zwick |
| Produced by | Gary Goetzman Tom Hanks Rita Wilson |
| Written by | Nia Vardalos |
| Starring | John Corbett Nia Vardalos Lainie Kazan Michael Constantine Ian Gomez Arielle Sugarman Stavroula Logothettis Gia Carides Andrea Martin Louis Mandylor Jayne Eastwood |
| Music by | Alexander Janko Chris Wilson |
| Cinematography | Jeffrey Jur |
| Editing by | Mia Goldman |
| Studio | Playtone Gold Circle Films MPH Entertainment HBO Pictures |
| Distributed by | IFC Films |
| Release date(s) | April 19, 2002 |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $5 million |
| Box office | $368,744,044[1] |
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a 2002 Canadian and American romantic comedy film written by and starring Nia Vardalos and directed by Joel Zwick. The film is centered on Fotoula "Toula" Portokalos (Nia Vardalos), a middle class Greek American woman who falls in love with a non-Greek upper middle class "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant" Ian Miller (John Corbett). At the 75th Academy Awards, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. A sleeper hit, the film grossed $241.4 million in North America, despite never reaching number one at the box office during its release (the highest-grossing film to accomplish this feat).
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Toula (Nia Vardalos) is going through an early midlife crisis. At thirty, she is the only woman in her family who has "failed". Her family expects her to "marry a Greek, make Greek babies, and feed everyone until the day [she] die[s]." Instead, Toula is stuck working in the family business, a restaurant. In contrast to her "perfect" sister, Athena (Stavroula Logothetis), Toula is frumpy and cynical. She fears she's doomed to be stuck with her life as it is.
At the restaurant, she briefly sees Ian Miller (John Corbett), a handsome school teacher. This event, combined with an argument with her father, Gus (Michael Constantine), motivates her to begin taking computer classes at a local college. She also gets contact lenses, wears her hair curly, and begins to use makeup. Toula, her mother (Laine Kazan), and her aunt Voula (Andrea Martin) then contrive a way to get Gus to allow her to work at Voula's travel agency.
Toula feels much better in her new job, especially when she notices Ian hanging around looking at her through the window. They finally introduce themselves and begin dating. Toula keeps the relationship secret from her family until some weeks later when Gus finds out. He throws a fit because Ian is not Greek, but Ian and Toula continue to see each other against Gus's wishes. Ian proposes marriage to her, she accepts, and he agrees to be baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church to be worthy of her family.
As the year passes, the wedding planning hits snag after snag as Toula's relatives "helpfully" interfere. Her father insists on inviting the entire church to the ceremony, her mother orders the invitations but misspells Ian's parents' names, and Toula's cousin Nikki (Gia Carides) orders tacky bridesmaids' dresses. Toula is horrified to learn that her parents invited the entire family to what was meant to be a "quiet" dinner, and the Millers, not used to such cultural fervor, are overwhelmed.
The wedding day dawns with liveliness and hysteria, but the traditional wedding itself goes without a hitch. Gus gives a speech accepting Ian and the Millers as family and buys the newlyweds a house right next door to him. The film's epilogue shows the new couple's life six years later in which they have a daughter, Paris, whom they raise in the Greek style, but Toula tells her she can marry anyone she wants when she grows up after she says she wants to go to Brownies instead of Greek school.
The film was shot in Toronto and Chicago. Toronto's Ryerson University and Greektown neighborhood feature prominently in the film. Despite its writer being from Winnipeg, and the use of Toronto for location shots, the movie was set in Chicago. Walking tours of Greektown on Danforth Avenue point out scene locations. The home used to depict Gus and Maria Portokalos' residence (as well as the home bought next door at the end of the film for Toula and Ian) is located on Glenwood Crescent just off O'Connor Drive in East York. The real home representing the Portokalos' residence actually has most of the external ornamentation that was shown in the film. Also, some minor parts of the movie were shot in Jarvis High School in Toronto.
After a February 2002 premiere, it was initially released in the USA on April 19, 2002. That summer it opened in Iceland, Israel, Greece, and Canada. The following fall and winter it opened in Turkey, UK, New Zealand, Argentina, Australia, Hong Kong, Brazil, Norway, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Taiwan, the Philippines, Egypt, Peru, Sweden, Mexico, Hungary, Germany, Austria, Switzerland (German speaking region), France, Poland, Kuwait, Estonia, and Lithuania. It was finally released in South Korea in March 2003, and Japan in July 2003.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding became a sleeper hit and grew steadily from its limited release. Despite never hitting the number one spot and being an independent film with a $5 million budget, it ultimately grossed over $368.7 million worldwide, becoming one of the top romantic films of the 21st Century according to Echo Bridge Entertainment.[1] It was the fifth highest-grossing movie of 2002 in the United States, with USD$241,438,208, and the highest-grossing romantic comedy in history.[2] Domestically, it is also the highest-grossing film never having been number one on the weekly North American box office charts.[3] CNBC also found the film to be the most profitable movie of all time with a 6150% return on an inflation adjusted cost of $6 million to produce. Second place film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was a distant second with a 3172% return.[4] However, CNBC findings were not accurate because the 2004 film, Napoleon Dynamite had a return of 11,500%, and the 2007 film, Paranormal Activity had a return of a whopping 1.3 million % (costing only $15,000 to produce and grossing an astonishing $193,355,800).
The movie received generally positive reviews. Martin Grove of Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson [...] found Wedding when it was a one-woman Nia Vardalos play in L.A. and believed in it so much that they got it made as a movie".[5]
Based on 121 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an overall approval rating from critics of 75%, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The website's critical consensus was, "Though it sometimes feels like a television sitcom, My Big Fat Greek Wedding is good-hearted and lovable."[6] By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 62, based on 29 reviews, which is considered to be "Generally favorable reviews".[7]
The movie inspired the brief 2003 TV series My Big Fat Greek Life, with most of the major characters played by the same actors, with the exception of Steven Eckholdt replacing John Corbett as the husband. Corbett had already signed on to the TV series Lucky. He was scheduled to appear as the best friend of his replacement's character, but the show was cancelled before he appeared. The show received poor reviews from critics noting the random character entrances and serious plot "adjustments" that didn't match the movie.
The 7 episodes from the series are available on DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, whose TV studio division produced the show.
Throughout the film, Kostas "Gus" Portokalos, played by Michael Constantine, continuously uses Windex, the popular window cleaner, as a remedy for everything.
The movie makes references to Zorba the Greek (1964), The Lost Boys (1987), That Thing You Do! (1996), and Meet the Parents (2000), while spoofing Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Another independent Canadian feature, Mambo Italiano (2003), referenced Wedding. Because of the surprise success of Wedding and its unusual title, its name was lampooned by several television series and movies:
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