My Big Fat Greek Disappointment

Several months too late I saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding and it was a big fat disappointment. There were some funny bits but mostly it was cheap ethnic humor, sort of like Jewish jokes told by Jews, ie it’s ok when people make fun of their own. The storyline was weak, and made quantum leaps from point to point without explaining why things happened. The characterizations were weak, with Greek caricatures being juxtaposed with WASP-ish “white” caricatures. Chicago becomes a small town with a community college, and a school teacher’s salary somehow becomes more than enough to afford some primo housing, the sudden, yet strangely unnoticed, transformation of the main character, all of these things just don’t add up. Maybe it’s bad editing, maybe it’s bad writing, but all in all I give it two stars – for effort.