While watching this film a realization creeps up on oneself that there are startling similarities between the Greek culture and the Ukrainian culture - for one thing both seem to be able to break into music and create a dance-style atmosphere at the drop of a hat! .
Now please don't get me wrong! I love the Greek culture as much as I love the Ukrainian culture - having first hand experience of both. My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a nicely thought out simple story of a woman named Toula born and raised in America trying to 'fit in' with America's diverse selection of cultures, whilst also clinging to her Greek heritage.
Toula is a single thirty year old Greek woman working in the family business, a restaurant. Her older sister is married and is doing/and has done all the right things - she has married a Greek man, produced lots of Greek babies and feeds anyone or anything that gets within eating distance of her house! Of course this makes Toula's immensely proud Greek father very happy!.
So here we have Toula who feels caught between the family traditions, who wants to escape working in the family restaurant and embrace a bit more of life and what it has to offer. She finally breaks free by enrolling at the local college where she meets the man of her dreams, everything she could wish for - unfortunately he is not Greek! When her large and very close knit Greek family find out, there is trauma - but Ian (her husband to be, bless him) is willing to do anything to make Toula happy even to the extent of converting to Greek Orthodoxy and being baptized kneeling in the font with only a pair of shorts on! Of course, as Toula so rightly points out to him:.
'Your lucky day. To be baptized in a Greek Orthodox church.'.
This film celebrates cultural family traditions and along with the infusion of the genuine love that Toula and Ian have it bathes their story in a humorous and warm way that gently radiates itself towards the audience.