Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

As a self-described cinematic-cynic, I am more than willing to give a film a chance if its praises have been sung via word-of-mouth rather than the Hollywood marketing machine. With "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" the former circumstance was certainly true. Countless friends and family members intoned that I had to see this movie, that I'd laugh out loud, and that, despite my hard-won cynicism, I couldn't help but enjoy it. Even my father, a man whose tastes for movie blood and gore and car chases can only be indulged when I chaperone him to the theatre in place of my more demure mother, proclaimed it a joyous viewing experience. "I laughed till I cried," said my Old Man. So, based on this unanimous endorsement, I deigned to check the movie out.

I get the feeling that people don't like me as much as I thought they did, for "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was truly a horrible experience.

Now, despite being a twentysomething male, I pretty much fit into the demographic this film is aimed at. I come from a large, ethnic family (not quite as large as the Portokalos clan, who claim 27 first cousins, but large enough: in my generation there are 12 of us), and am a sucker for a good romantic comedy. But alas, the modus operandi used to depict said family and said story here ran smack dab into the middle of all my cinematic pet peeves.

In a romantic comedy, I have to be rooting for the protagonists to get together, no matter what obstacles are put in their way. When Toula, the shy and frumpy and free-thinking child of over-bearing Greek parents, who are desperate for her to marry a nice Greek boy, first lays eyes on Ian, the WASP English teacher with the nonthreatening smile, there were enough sparks to make me optimistic for what was to follow. Then, on their second meeting, when the couple's awkwardness and clumsiness in the face of a burgeoning crush is portrayed with just the right amount of sentiment, I was sure that this was a romance I was going to love following. Sadly, those two moments were the only times when Nia Vardalos as Toula (on whose one-woman stage play the film is based) and John Corbett as Ian ("Sex and the City", "Northern Exposure") exhibited any kind of romantic chemistry whatsoever. The rest of the time they are rather bland and flat together. And despite the fact that each character was looking for a change, something different than what their parents and friends expected of them, in no way does the film present any justifiable reasons why these two would ever fall in love. They just do, and we in the audience are asked to accept it.

So the leads are dull. What carries the film, then, must be the vibrant energy and knock-it-outta-the-park acting of the ensemble supporting cast, right? Wrong! It appears that the director, sensing a lack of heat between Toula and Ian, instructed the rest of his cast to play their parts as loud and as brash as possible, as a means of distracting the audience. Well, I must say I was distracted. Distracted right into a migraine, that is.

To begin with, Toula's parents are played by Lainie Kazan and Michael Constantine. Kazan is fine enough, in a rather broad portrayal of the kind of domineering mother character we've come to know very well. Constantine, on the other hand, is downright bad. He plays Papa Gus as whiny, stubborn, stupid, and ineffectual. Which might, in fact, be a truthful characterization, but it sure isn't fun to watch. The rest of his clan is made up of a symphony of bad and annoying performances, including Gia Carides as the trashy Cousin Nikki, Stavrola Logothettis as the boorish sister Athena, and 'NSync'er Joey Fatone (this glorified backup dancer is an actor now?) as repulsive Cousin Angelo. But broadest, and at times worst, of all, and it really pains me to say this about a fellow Canuck, is Andrea Martin as Aunt Voula. Martin, still plying the same Edith Prickley shtick that for some reason gained her popularity on "SCTV", has one good moment (it is, not coincidentally, also her quietest). The rest of the time she chooses to play Voula as a caricature rather than a character, and the results are truly cringe-worthy.

These people aren't helped in any way by the script (which Vardalos penned herself), which gives them no discerning character traits other than the fact that they are Greeks, and are wont to do what Greeks do. Nothing more. It's a lazy kind of shorthand ("My Big Fat Stereotypical Ethnic Family" might have been a better film title) that goes for cheap laughs but instead elicits groans and gags.

I need to clear my head here for a moment, to talk about a couple of highlights before I begin again with the vitriol. So let me first say that Ian Gomez (the real life Mr. Vardalos) is good as always, in a small and low-key role as Ian's best friend, a fellow English teacher constantly on the make. And second, let me point out that Louis Mandylor, as brother Nick, is the only member of the Portokalos clan to achieve any sense of reality. Mandylor has some fine wordless moments with Vardalos that show how tender and textured a sibling relationship can be on film, when the volume is turned down and the actors are allowed to shine with subtlety.

Okay, I'm feeling much better. Back to the wrath.

The biggest recipient of my bile and anger must be Joel Zwick. Zwick, whose only other big-screen directorial job was in helming the insufferable Bronson Pinchot/John Larroquette psychic-detective "comedy", has spent most of his career behind the camera for a series of awful-to-atrocious sitcoms (most notably "Bosom Buddies", where he met "Wedding" producer Tom Hanks, leaving little wonder as to why this hack got the job; How come Peter Scolari didn't get a role, then?). Thus, his second big-screen directorial effort comes across like a warmed-over sitcom, with uninspired scene stagings winning out over the kind of creativity that must be present in order to make a $5 million budget look bigger than it is. And I can't tell if this is Zwick's fault or the script, but he telegraphs most of the jokes so badly, you can see them coming from a mile away, like Omar Sharif crossing the desert in "Lawrence of Arabia". [tangent: Quickly, in a film about a Greek family's culture clash, what's the most obvious joke the script could make? It's not that hard a question if you think about it. Got it? Good. Do you think this movie takes the easy road and makes that joke? Well, of course it does! Never have my eyes rolled so hard at a film's laziness…]

I will give Zwick credit for one thing: he made Toronto's Danforth community -- a.k.a. "Greektown" (which is but a 30-minute subway ride from my house) -- look like, well, not exactly Chicago, which is where the film is supposed to be set. But at least it doesn't look like Toronto. There's a feather in his cap, for sure!

For a movie so nearly devoid of any redeeming qualities, the ending (after the short and anticlimactic titular ceremony, which is neither big nor fat) is a perfect fit. It neatly tramples on most of the film's messages (i.e., "Two roads diverged in a wood / And I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference"), and insists on wrapping everything up in a bow, the better to confuse the audience into thinking that this happy ending will truly make the characters happy.

This film and I, we go together like apples and oranges.

Recommended: No