My Big Fat Greek Wedding
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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My Big Fat Greek Wedding is an Academy Award nominated 2002 romantic comedy film written by and starring Nia Vardalos and directed by Joel Zwick. It was the fifth highest grossing movie of 2002 in the USA, with USD$241,438,208. It is the highest-grossing film to never have been number 1 on the weekly North American box-office charts. In 2003, it was nominated for an Academy Award, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
Plot
30-year-old Fotoula “Toula” Portokalos is a member of a large, loud, intrusive Greek family that only wants her to get married and have children; frumpy and meek, she works in her family’s Chicago restaurant, Dancing Zorba’s, but longs to do something more with her life. While working one day, she is immediately smitten with Ian Miller, a handsome, Anglo-Saxon man. She amuses Ian when he catches her staring at him and jokingly calls herself his “own private Greek statue.” That evening, Toula offers to go to college to learn about computers so she can improve the restaurant, but her father, Gus, becomes emotional, claiming Toula wants to leave him. Her mother, Maria, comforts Toula and convinces Gus to agree to Toula’s idea.
As the weeks pass, Toula gains more confidence and changes her image, switching her thick-framed glasses for contact lenses, styling her hair, and wearing makeup and brighter clothes that show off her figure. She sees a notice for a course on computers and tourism and tells her Aunt Voula, who owns a travel agency, that she could apply what she learns in the course to Voula’s business. Voula agrees, and she and Maria slyly convince Gus to agree as well.
Toula’s happiness working at the travel agency catches Ian’s attention and he asks her to dinner. Knowing her family wouldn’t approve of her dating a non-Greek, Toula lies that she is taking a pottery class in order to see Ian. Ian eventually realizes Toula is the waitress from Dancing Zorba’s; contrary to Toula’s fear that he would lose interest in her, Ian reaffirms his fondness of her. They continue dating and fall in love.
Toula’s lie is ultimately exposed; Gus is furious that Ian did not ask his permission to date Toula, despite the fact that they are grown adults. Gus refuses to let them continue seeing each other; they blithely ignore his decree, so Gus introduces Toula to single friends of his own, to no avail.
Ian proposes marriage and Toula accepts. Maria tells Gus that he must accept their marriage, but Gus remains upset because Ian is not a member of the Greek Orthodox Church. To get the family to accept him, Ian agrees be baptized into the church. The Portokalos family does finally accept him, but constantly inserts themselves into the wedding planning, designing ugly bridesmaid’s dresses and misspelling Ian’s mother’s name on their wedding invitations so it looks like his parents are a gay male couple.
Ian’s quiet, conservative parents join the entire family for a loud and extravagant Greek dinner and are overwhelmed by the experience, frustrating Gus. Toula worries about whether her father has really accepted Ian or not. Maria explains that, growing up, her family experienced many hardships, and that she and Gus simply want her to be happy. Toula’s grandmother shows Toula photos of herself as a young woman and the crown she wore at her own wedding, which Toula puts on. When the three women all look at Toula in her bedroom mirror, the sight of three generations in the reflection makes Toula smile with pride. The wedding proceeds as planned.
At the wedding reception, Gus gives a heartfelt speech focusing on how the differences in the newlyweds' backgrounds do not matter. He and Maria then surprise Toula and Ian with a house as a wedding gift; Toula is speechless at the gesture of love from her father. As the two families dance together, Toula narrates that while her family is indeed loud, odd, and somewhat dramatic, she knows they love her and will always be there for her.
Six years later, Toula and Ian leave their house -- conveniently located right next door to Gus and Maria’s -- to walk their daughter to Greek school.
