This week on Deeply Inconsequential Theater is My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video), the continuing ethnic comedy saga of a Greek-American woman and her family of crazy Buttinskies. Hosted by writer and star Nia Vardalos, the first MBFGWfrom 2002, was a wildly successful (read: profitable, to the tune of a few hundred million dollars) independent film that ran in theaters for a year, something that almost certainly won’t happen again. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, from 2016, repeated many of the same jokes and made us hope it wouldn’t happen again. And then came the third, directed by Vardalos, and yes, it happened again, proving that the first time was the charm, and everything else was depressingly tacky.
MY BIG GREEK WEDDING 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: THE PORTOKALOS FAMILY IS IN CHANGE. Patriarch Gus is dead. Matriarch Maria (Lainie Kazan) has dementia and is in a nursing home. That leaves dear Toula (Vardalos) as successor to the family throne, surely built from bones and skulls. She doesn’t have the burden of keeping the family together; she claims that they are “bound by her own sweat,” so that will never be a concern. Rather, the task at hand is to deliver her father’s diary to her three dear friends, whom she left behind in Greece when the family immigrated to Chicago. This is not a task she can handle alone, lest the grand formula be broken, so she, her husband Ian (John Corbett), her college student daughter Paris (Elena Kampouris), her brother Nick (Louis Mandylor) and his aunt Voula (Andrea Martin). ) and Aunt Frieda (Maria Vacratsis) and Paris’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Aristotle (Elias Kacavas), hop on a plane for what is sure to be a bizarre vacation. Hurrah?
No. They arrive in Greece and don’t seem to have booked any accommodation, possibly because Vardalos hasn’t written much of a script. Good thing the first person they meet is Gus’s ex Alexandra (Anthi Andreopoulou), an elderly babushka who gives them a big room so one of them can declare “Family sleepover!” Then Alexandra attacks with nuclear weapons. She informs them that she has given birth to Gus’s secret son, Peter (Alexis Georgoulis), and here she is. Seems nice! And also the sheep that wakes them all up in the morning, who has as much personality as anyone present (which is to say, not much).
There are a few subplots that happen while Toula tries to track down her father’s friends: Paris hasn’t told her parents that she’s about to fail NYU, and she has to deal with Aristotle’s discomfort since she doesn’t. invited him, one of his nosy and horny aunts did. Ian meets a local monk and soaks up his wisdom. When Nick isn’t grooming his nose hairs at the breakfast table, he finds his father’s favorite tree so he can scatter her ashes. The town fountain is dry because there is a big rock blocking the spring, so maybe someone should move it? Every once in a while, one or both of the aunts come over to do or say something “fun.” Will any of these featherweight stories come to fruition? The better question might be: will we care about any of this?
What movies will it remind you of?: congratulations to MBFGW3 for making me remember that When in Rome exists. Life is much, much better when films like these are banished to the opaque ether of memory.
Performance worth seeing: I maintain that Corbett timed his performance to be as bland as possible so that he would not be associated with the broad, bland performances around him. We can also presumably forget that he’s even in the movie in the first place.
Memorable dialogue: Let’s pick a few things from the script: “I can make facials with Greek yogurt.” Enemas too! -Other brother. I’m amazed.†“A lady He is never drunk!
Sex and skin: Is MBFGW3 The kind of movie where a character accidentally wanders onto a nude beach only to discover that the quirky characters are already there, strategically holding comical objects in front of their naughty bits? Yes Yes it is.
Our opinion: The only thing in MBFGW3 That’s older than jokes is the Parthenon. I dare you to watch this and find a reason to laugh at something other than its incompetence. Vardalos’ script is a collection of conflicts resolved by luck and circumstance, because God forbid any of the characters. do anything interesting. Meddling in other people’s affairs is at an all-time low among the Porotkalos, and the fish out of water and ugly ducklings that define this franchise are all but dead. Although they are in their homeland, these characters are a bit outside themselves, existing as empty vessels in front of a beautiful Greek landscape like dead cacti in the foreground of a postcard.
Of course, there has to be a wedding in the movie, because Read the title, silly, then Vardalos sneaks one in in the third act, involving a couple of supporting characters who are even emptier than the main ones. I speak vaguely, not to avoid spoilers, but because everything is depressingly forgettable: the characters, the performances, the writing, the comedy, the drama, everything. I take it back: the direction and editing are memorably atrocious, Vardalos altered the footage until the pace and rhythm of the film resembles that of a donkey dancing the watusi. By the way, should these people be in mourning? And why does Vardalos bother to include any deeply mediocre commentary on the refugee crisis? I have no answers, and neither does the movie. Embarrassing!
Our call: Let’s see: bedding, shredding, decapitation… aha! My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3? More like My Greatest Greek Fear 3! SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
