You can tell Nia Vardalos is aiming squarely at those already familiar with the surprise-hit 2002 original film when the first Windex gag appears without any set-up. So your reaction to the original should be considered a fairly safe barometer of your likely response to this follow-up, in which Toula (Vardalos) and Ian (John Corbett) face empty-nesthood with the impending high school graduation of their daughter, Paris (Elena Kampouris), and Toula’s parents (Michael Constantine and Lainie Kazan) learn that their marriage in Greece was never official, necessitating a second big fat wedding. The jokes are again almost entirely at the expense of Toula’s oppressively close family; the structure matches a TV sitcom almost classically in its A-plot/B-plot/C-plot format and stubbornly low stakes. It could easily be exasperating that every potential area of conflict—from a marriage going stale to a family member coming out of the closet—simply becomes an opportunity to show how eccentrically supportive everyone is of everyone else, but Vardalos understands her audience. She wants to make the kind of movie that people walk out of saying, “That was so
cute.” And it kind of is.
By
Scott Renshaw