Movie Review My Big Fat Greek Wedding

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) 

Directed by Joel Zwick 

Written by Nia Vardolas 

Starring Nia Vardalos Michael Constantine, John Corbett, Lanie Kazan 

Release Date April 19th, 2002 

Published April 18th, 2002 

My heritage is Irish, which by stereotype means I love potatoes and lots of alcohol. I do like potatoes but I don't drink. Not everyone lives into a stereotype. Nia Vardalos, the star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, also doesn't live up to the stereotype of a Greek woman. She is supposed to marry a nice Greek boy, have lots of children and cook until she dies. Nia's character, Toula Portokalos, aspires to be more than the stereotype.

Wedding is the story of Toula Portokalos, a frumpy depressed waitress at her family's restaurant called  Dancing Zorba's. Her father Gus (Michael Constantine) is a very loving man who believes Windex can cure almost any ailment. Gus wants Toula to marry a Greek boy and have Greek babies. Toula would rather go to college and learn about computers and get out from under her family for a little while. Toula's mother Maria (Lanie Kazan) understands her daughter’s ambition and coerces Gus into letting her go.

After a makeover from her frump phase into the attractive girl she had always hidden, Toula goes to college and decides to become a travel agent. After getting a job in her Aunt's travel agency Toula meets Ian (John Corbett). They have immediate chemistry and before long they are ready to head down the aisle. If only it were that simple. First Ian must get past Toula's father, a difficult task because Ian isn't Greek. Then Toula must meet Ian's parents who are WASPs, White Anglo Saxon Protestants. In other words, the Whitest people on the planet.

The problem is I'm not sure what this film was aiming for. Were the scenes with Toula's Aunt played by Andrea Martin meant to be over the top or was she supposed to be taken seriously? The way Martin plays the role it's difficult to tell.

Some of the characters also live into the various stereotypes, while our leads Vardoulias and Corbett play everything straight. Maybe that was the attempt; juxtapose Ian and Toula against the more stereotypical characters in order to show what they are attempting to overcome. If that was the attempt I'm stretching to get it. The film's tone defies that explanation a couple times throughout the film.

The film is still very amusing at times, like when Ian's parents are introduced to Toula's family and extended family and they meet Toula's six cousins and nephews all named Nick and her cousin Nikki. Also, Toula's grandmother, who was brought over from the old country and is always trying to go back.

The laughs are there and so is the heart. Despite the stereotypes each character is shown to have a great heart and is written with love. The film is drawn from Vardoulas' own life so she does genuinely love each of these characters, so her broad interpretation of each character is done with love. My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a light, fun little film with some solid laughs. I recommend you check it out, especially if you are Greek.

Movie Review Larry Crowne

Larry Crowne (2011) 

Directed by Tom Hanks 

Written by Tom Hanks, Nia Vardalos 

Starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Bryan Cranston, Gugu Mbatha Raw, Taraji P Henson

Release Date July 1st, 2011 

Published June 30th, 2011 

"Larry Crowne" is a disappointment on multiple levels. First, and most important, is how truly awful a movie "Larry Crowne" is. Boring, banal, pointless and at times bordering on amateurish. Then there is the fact that the film stars two of the biggest stars of the past 25 years of film, Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks.

And finally, there is the fact that Tom Hanks co-wrote and directed this failure of sub-sitcom humor and cloying romance. Tom Hanks had shown so much promise as the director of the charming period rock n' roll movie "That Thing You Do." To see him deliver something as charm-free and banal as "Larry Crowne" is just sad.

Tom Hanks stars in the title role of Larry Crowne. Larry is maybe the nicest, sweetest guy you would ever want Tom Hanks to play; he's Forrest Gump minus most of the mental handicaps. Larry was in the Navy for more than 20 years but when asked about it he's quick with a humble smile and an admittance that he was just a cook. Awww.

Larry's wife divorced him several years ago, before they could have kids but after they had bought their suburban dream home. Since then, Larry has thrown himself into his work, taking great pride in being an eight time employee of the month at U-Mart, a Wal-Mart/Target Superstore clone.

Unfortunately for Larry, he never went to college. At UMart you can only move up to management if you have a degree and without one, Larry can't move up so he must move on. Fired from his beloved retail job, Larry finds the job market unwelcoming. Lucky for him, his neighbor has an idea, Community College.

If Larry can get a degree maybe he can get his job back or an even better job. Is the movie over? No, it has only begun as Larry returns to school and immediately acquires a new best friend, a perfect pixie named Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who immediately sets about changing Larry's life around; new clothes, new haircut, new friends and boom, slightly new Larry. She's a manic pixie dream-best friend. 

Meanwhile, in another movie, Julia Roberts plays a slightly alcoholic Community College professor who happens to have Larry Crowne in one of her classes. From time to time the camera ditches Larry to follow the professor into her sad life with her porn addicted, unemployed husband, Dean (Bryan Cranston).

Oh if only she could get a little Larry time; his cuddliness and good humor would without a doubt brighten her day and solve all of troubles. Oops. I maybe should have offered a spoiler alert there. Then again, did you think "Larry Crowne" was going to star Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts and they weren't going to be matched up?

The fact is, romantic comedies aren't about suspenseful plotting, they're about setting believable, interesting, roadblocks between potential love mates and watching them humorously negotiate said roadblocks on their way to a chirpy happy ending. Rom-coms are about the journey and in the case of "Larry Crowne," it's not a great journey.

Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts demonstrate a stunning lack of chemistry in "Larry Crowne." In fact, Hanks has a great deal more chemistry with young Gugu Mbatha-Raw than with Julia Roberts. That however, would be a different, possibly more interesting movie. That movie would at least have the tension of a cross-racial May-December romance.

"Larry Crowne," on the other hand, has no tension whatsoever. As Roger Ebert points out perfectly in his review, Larry Crowne begins as a good guy and progresses through the movie as a good guy before ending as a good guy. There is no arc to "Larry Crowne." We know where the movie is going and it gets there with a minimum of humor and zero tension, as if complicating the plot might make the audience uncomfortable.

Oh, but there is the porn addict husband, right? He's a source of tension isn't he? He's played by Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston. That must be contentious? But it's not, the script deals the husband out of the story with such simplicity as to have simply forgotten he was even there.

It's shocking and sad just how bad "Larry Crowne" is. I am a huge Tom Hanks fan but I cannot deny just how banal the whole thing is. The humor is amateurish, the romance is lifeless and perfunctory and the movie just sort of stands around smiling pleasantly and hoping that all of the Tom Petty songs on the soundtrack, there are like a dozen of them, will be entertaining enough to distract from the dullness of what little story there is.