Do you have a video playback issues?
Please disable AdBlocker in your browser for our website.
Due to a high volume of active users and service overload, we had to decrease the quality of video streaming. Premium users remains with the highest video quality available. Sorry for the inconvinience it may cause. Donate to keep project running.
Toula Portokalos is 30, Greek, and works in her family';s restaurant, Dancing Zorba';s, in Chicago. All her father Gus wants is for her to get married to a nice Greek boy. But Toula is looking for more in life. Her mother convinces Gus to let her take some computer classes at college (making him think it';s his idea). With those classes under her belt, she then takes over her aunt';s travel agency (again making her father think it';s his idea). She meets Ian Miller, a high school English teacher, WASP, and dreamboat she had made a fool of herself over at the restaurant; they date secretly for a while before her family finds out. Her father is livid over her dating a non-Greek. He has to learn to accept Ian; Ian has to learn to accept Toula';s huge family, and Toula has to learn to accept herself.
Endearing eccentricities, such as Toula's father's improvisational Greek etymologies of words like "kimono" and his reliance on Windex for a range of external-use medicinal purposes, help humanize the characters.
The reliability of the genre doesn't excuse predictable jokes, pat fiascoes and so many stereotypes that one is tempted to alert the Greek anti-defamation league.
July 20, 2002
Felix Vasquez Jr.
It offers the illusion of originality by bombarding audiences with Greek stereotypes, but really clings to the formulaic romance comedy.
Second City alum Nia Vardalos stars in this ethnic comedy, which she also wrote -- an ambitious way to break into a leading role; too bad the results are insubstantial.