(2002) Fotoula Portokalos (Nia Vardalos, who also wrote the script), whose names in Greek mean "light of God" and the fruit orange, goes by Toula; she's 30, unmarried, living with her parents, a seating hostess in her family's Greek restaurant, Dancing Zorba's, in Chicago. "You better get married soon," says her father Gus (Michael Constantine). "You look so old."

A Greek woman's goal in life, Tuola's been repeatedly told, should be to marry a Greek boy, make babies, and feed everyone, as her mother Maria (Lainie Kazan) has done, until death do them part. Embarrassed by the way her family lives - her father, who tries to teach non-Greeks how wonderful the Greeks are, taking every opportunity to explain how any word can be derived from a Greek root and the cure-all wonders of Windex, brought his mother to the US "because we we're weird enough" - she wanted to do something different, so she did.

Her younger brother Niko is looking for a Greek virgin for a bride; her younger sister Athena is already married with three children. Wishing she were braver, prettier, or at least happier, she cringes when she first sees the apple of her eye, Ian Miller (John Corbett), a hunk of un-Hellenistic handsomeness, seated at a table with Mike, his friend and teaching colleague.

With her mother's help - the man is the head of the household, but the woman is the neck that turns the head - Toula gets permission to attend Harry S Truman College, studying computers and tourism, changing her wardrobe, hairstyle, and eyeglasses for contact lenses; she goes to work for her Aunt Voula (Andrea Martin) at Mount Olympus Travel Agency where she once again encounters Ian, who asks her out for dinner.

Afraid to let her family know she's dating a high-school English teacher deficient in Greek heritage, she tells everyone she's taking evening pottery classes. Coy at first with Ian, who has other than a pair of parents only two cousins who live in Wisconsin, she confesses to having a big family with 27 first cousins in which everybody's involved in everyone else's life and business and constantly eating: "No one in my family has ever gone out with a non-Greek before." Nevertheless, Ian finds her interesting, beautiful, and fun to be with; she makes him feel alive. He makes her feel special for the first time in her life.

Toula's cousin Nikki (Gia Carides) finds out about Mr Pottery Class; when Toula says she loves Ian, her mother tells her: "Eat something." After her father begins bringing suitors home for dinner to meet Toula, she agrees finally to go up to Ian's apartment and then to meeting his parents. The romance is the least convincing aspect of the film.

To assuage Toula's father so that the wedding can take place in the Greek Orthodox Church, Ian, lacking a religious commitment, submits to being baptized. Preparations begin for the wedding of an apple to an orange. His parents, Rodney and Harriet, come across as "dry toast" in Toula's parents' eyes; their names are printed on the invitations as "Rodney and Harry Miller." Aunt Voula exclaims, "He don't eat no meat," when she hears the groom-to-be is a vegetarian. Ian asks Niko how to say "thank you" in Greek to express appreciation to Maria, but the Greek words mean "Nice boobs." As the "snow beast" walks down the church aisle toward the altar, her family spit on her for good luck.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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