‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3’ Review: Nia Vardalos Directs an Unfortunate Affair Filled With Beauty and Blunders
07.09.2023 - 23:31
/ variety.com
Courtney Howard Franchises rarely get better as they go along. Unfortunately, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” is no exception to the rule, as the expanded saga of the Portokalos family becomes less compelling, introspective and funny the more time we spend with them. The first film, centered on a woman’s quest to find herself and establish her identity within her overbearing family unit, was a sleeper 2002 hit with uplifting sentiment at its core.
Its first sequel, in 2016, had trouble duplicating that same lightning in a bottle. With an overstuffed and underdeveloped narrative bloated by sitcom-inspired shenanigans — perhaps leftover from the failed TV spinoff series “My Big Fat Greek Life” — it delivered a toxic message about familial codependence wrapped up in a cutesy, cloying package. Twenty-one years after audiences initially said “I do,” “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3” compels us to start divorce proceedings.
Revolving around our beloved, put-upon protagonist returning to her deceased father’s homeland to perform one final favor, this threequel is surprisingly lifeless and almost laugh-less. To an alarming degree, writer-director Nia Vardalos undervalues the worth of her own creation, recoiling from much of the story’s earned emotional pull or any sense of genuine interpersonal strife that doesn’t take more than a scene to resolve. And, for a franchise whose long running gag involves proving all words are derived from the Greek language, it’s more than ironic that this chapter is lacking in humanistic drama — an art we can credit to the Greeks.
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