My Big Fat Greek Wedding

IFC Films | Release Date: April 19, 2002

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

62	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Peter Travers

Like Vardalos and Corbett, who play their roles with vibrant charm, the film, directed by Joel Zwick, is heartfelt and hilarious in ways you can't fake. It's a keeper. Read full review

New Times (L.A.)Gregory Weinkauf

It's light fantasy, but lovely and astute.

Desson Thomson

It's not art, this movie. But it's much more amusing than you'd expect. Read full review

David Edelstein

There is a long and honorable tradition of broad intermarriage comedies (from the Romans to Abie's Irish Rose to La Cage aux Folles), and this one comes at least shoulder-high to the best. It has been directed by Joel Zwick in a happy, bustling style and acted with madcap ethnic relish. Read full review

Marc Savlov

Not only the best date movie of the year, it's also a -- dare I say it twice -- delightfully charming -- and totally American, I might add -- slice of comedic bliss. Read full review

Jami Bernard

Vardalos is a breath of fresh air. After all the little nipped and tucked bunnies we've been seeing onscreen for so long, we forget what real women look like.

Rick Groen

With Corbett's laidback persona nicely countering Vardalos's authorial performance, the picture radiates a pure affability that's awfully attractive. My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a very slim movie that succeeds on its own modest terms without pretense or apology. Read full review

Mick LaSalle

It's a buoyant comedy with more warmth and generosity of spirit than anything else in theaters right now. Read full review

Chris Kaltenbach

The results are sometimes too frenetic, the laughs too obvious and predictable. But director Joel Zwick paces things well, and leavens the lunacy with enough seriousness (including a wonderfully poignant exchange between Toula and her brother) to keep the film grounded in the real.

Roger Ebert

Five minutes into the film, I relaxed, knowing it was set in the real world, and not in the Hollywood alternative universe where Julia Roberts can't get a date. Read full review

Connie Ogle

Vardalos made the Portokaloses so funny they'll make your own family seem tame. Read full review

Megan Lehmann

Delivers a sugar rush without the calories. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineKen Fox

Funny without out ever making fun, Vardalos mixes elements of ethnic stand-up, Cinderella romance and Bridget Loves Bernie-style situation comedy, all grounded in something very real. Read full review

Leslie Camhi

Vardalos's parodies of Greek family values are loving and witheringly hilarious. Read full review

Paula Nechak

There's such a good-natured heart beating beneath the cliches that it's easy to appreciate the film's willingness to poke gentle fun without a whiff of nastiness or judgment. Read full review

Lawrence Toppman

Vardalos is of Greek ancestry, which makes stereotyping permissible: She can tease Greeks, just as Italians can safely mock Italians or Jews can poke fun at Jews. But isn't it demeaning to reduce your heritage to clich?s? Read full review

Claudia Puig

Wedding feels a bit anachronistic. Still, not every low-budget movie must be quirky or bleak, and a happy ending is no cinematic sin. Read full review

Dave Kehr

An amiable, offhanded comedy about ethnic identity and last-chance romance. Read full review

Dennis Harvey

Suffers in ways typical to such adaptations -- what was fresh and flavorful in anecdotal description becomes more familiar and sitcom broad in literal depiction. Read full review

Michael Dequina

May not exactly be an innovative film, but it most certainly is a lovable one. Read full review

Chuck Wilson

Vardalos is a pleasing mix of Elaine May and Bonnie Hunt; in other words, she's not a sex kitten, but she's funny and smart. Read full review

Shawn Levy

Watching it is like filling up on baklava: Later you may feel really guilty, but you don't exactly complain while it's going on.

Loren King

Predictable and dull. Read full review

Nathan Rabin

Stays unrelentingly pleasant, but affability is a poor substitute for laughs or chemistry. Read full review

David Denby

I enjoyed parts of "Wedding," and I'm not about to tell people that they should not have enjoyed it. I'm just afraid that Hollywood will respond to its success by making many more sitcoms in the guise of movies. [23 Sept 2002, p. 98]

Charles Taylor

As Tolstoy observed, all sappy ethnic family comedies are the same. None is sappy in its own way. Read full review

Gene Seymour

All told, this is going to make passable television. Eventually. Read full review

Joshua Rothkopf

The intentionally broad Greek-American milieu is oddly colorless; having all of the cousins named Nick or Nikki is an OK gag, but once you're past it there's little to hold your attention. Read full review

Owen Gleiberman

The wedding, which turns the very concept of ''Greek'' into the sort of hideous, pandering clichés that look rejected from bad Jewish and Italian sitcoms. Read full review