My Big Fat Greek Wedding

My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a likeable romantic comedy about the thirty-year-old Toula, who is a cause of some concern to her family because she is not long since married with children. Toula does not want to be merely a breeding machine and a cook for a horde of kids. But in her family, which is very big, very Greek and very loud, it is simply not the custom for women to want independence and an education. Toula's father really chokes on his moussaka, however, when his daughter finally finds a nice guy, the literature teacher Ian Miller, who - oh horror, oh woe - is not Greek. There is truly quite a cultural gap between the pleasure-loving, partying Greeks and Ian's pale, buttoned-up parents.

Conflict is the main ingredient of a good story, and the culture clash in My Big Fat Greek Wedding ought to give rise to some suspenseful conflicts, but instead every hint of conflict peters out. A Hollywood film without proper conflicts is, and remains, something of a contradiction in terms. Everything is smoothed over, and although the comedy contains several funny scenes, the result is above all toothless and saccharine.