There have been a few movies over the years that I have seen solely because I was dating somebody who wanted me to see it.  My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) is one such example.  From what I recall, I think I was sufficiently charmed, though it helped that it is set in Chicago.  Seldom do I disparage a film that takes place in the land of my birth.  There is a lot I cannot remember about it, or its sequel, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016).  I cannot even be sure I saw the follow up, though I think I did.  Luckily, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 has its director, writer, and star, Nia Vardalos, give a summary of the previous installments in what is now a trilogy.  Had there been anything else playing in the cinema, I probably would have seen a different new release.  Usually, this is a sign that I did not enjoy the proceedings.  While I did not like it, I did not hate it.  It is a thoroughly “meh” movie.

After the recapitulation of the two forerunners, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 takes us back to Chicago where we check in on the Portokalos family.  Fotoula “Toula” Portokalos Miller (Nia Vardalos), who was one half of the original wedding, is going to see her mother, Maria Portokalos (Lainie Kazan), who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.  At some point in the unseen past, the family patriarch, Gus Portokalos (Michael Constantine), passed away.  Before he did, he made his children swear to return to their ancestral homeland of Greece.  Maria needlessly reminds her daughter of this duty, as well as her son, Nick Portokalos (Louis Mandylor).  There are two other issues compelling this trip.  First, Gus had told Toula that she needed a vacation, and had given her instructions to take his journal of his experiences immigrating to the United States and living there to his three childhood friends.  The other is a family reunion taking place in the town in which Gus was raised.  However, when the Portokalos travel, it is not one nuclear family set.  Instead, everyone who is able, save for Maria because of her condition, seems to be going.  This presents a number of problems, for the flight crew, for the plot, and for me trying to describe it all.  Getting this diary to the correct people and seeing her homeland is the raison d’etre for the main character.  I guess because people want to see this (more on this later), the movie tries to give something to do for the legion of other side characters along for the ride.  It is also difficult to distinguish who is family, and who is friend, though I guess remembering previous films might help.  This becomes all the more worrying when you consider Paris Miller (Elena Kampouris), Toula and husband Ian Miller’s (John Corbett) daughter and only child, apparently has some unresolved relationship with a young man named Aristotle (Elias Kacavas).  He is traveling with Aunt Theia Voula (Andrea Martin), Gus’ sister, but somehow he and Paris are not cousins.  Confusion aside, Paris is more worried about her grades at New York University, which, after her first year in college, have landed her on academic probation.  It has to be explained later that she partied too hard as a result of being on her own for the first time, though that does not seem to match with other hints about her upbringing.  Anyway, they are all greeted at the airport in Athens by the purposely androgynous Victory (Melina Kotselou).  I mean that in the sense that the movie takes pains to emphasize this part of her character, instead of just showing rather than telling.  She loads them all into a dilapidated truck with a semi-enclosed cargo compartment and forces Toula to drive.  Their destination is not Athens or any of the other wonders they see as they drive.  With the lone exception of stopping for a brief swim, they head straight to Gus’ village and find it nearly deserted.  Part of this is due to modernization, but also because the local source of water went dry.  Therefore, there are only six people left, and Victory is one of them, voting herself to be the mayor.  One of the others is Alexandra (Anthi Andreopoulou).  She has some startling revelations to go with her startling appearances, popping up unexpectedly in random places around town.  The first thing she says is that she was almost Nick and Toula’s mother before later admitting that she had given birth to another son, Peter (Alexis Georgoulis).  This is a person that Toula recognizes a few times spying on them while she goes about finding her father’s friends.  He finally lets everyone in on his identity at a dinner.  While this is pleasant, the uncovering of a relationship between Peter’s son and a female Syrian refugee has him furious.  Later, with a little encouragement from the hapless Nick, Peter relents and announces there will be a wedding on the day of the planned reunion.  This seems okay because up until this point, Toula has been unable to find the people for whom she is looking.  Still, Ian’s conversations with a local monk turns up a list of all the older people who had left the village in recent memory.  Since her cousin Nikki (Gia Carides) had recently traveled through Greece, she is employed to help track down these names.  This involves her coming to the Greek Isles, unbeknownst to Toula.  Come the night of the wedding, despite the insistence from Victory that everything will work out, she thinks she has failed.  Still, Ian and Nick have given her good perspective on what her father really wanted for his children: for them to be happy.  And, of course, Nikki comes through with them and a number of other people returning to the village.  Toula is happy; Aristotle and Paris are happy; Alexandra is happy; and they all (hopefully) live happily ever after.  Happy.

The people in the theater watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 seemed happy, too.  While I was able to spot a kid or two in the crowd, without them I would have been the youngest person in the theater by a longshot.  I was also shocked by the number of butts in seats.  I know the original is beloved, but as far as I can tell, the second was not nearly as well received.  In any case, seeing the demographics around me had me curious as to what trailers were to be shown.  With Hollywood writers currently on strike, the number of new projects has slowed to a trickle.  I am guessing this is why the previews the last couple of weeks have been almost entirely animated features.  Yes, that includes those that preceded The Equalizer 3.  For such an action film, we get a preview for PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie.  If you want a pretty fun review, go see what Cameron had to say about the original PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021).  My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3had a brief mention of the cartoon superhero pets (for reasons I cannot fathom) before it started rolling.  Actually, that makes more sense than the trailer for Drive-Away Dolls (slated for February, 2024), which came with My Big Fat Greek Wedding in my cinema.  Now, my understanding of how this is supposed to work is that Hollywood is big on target audiences.  If you watch a clip about Drive-Away Dolls, and have seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, please comment below how they became attached.  Put differently, how many of the pensioners in the audience saw that preview and thought it looked interesting?  Or is Hollywood getting desperate?  I can only imagine what the kids in the theater thought of that trailer.

Because I mentioned the word “monk” in my description of My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3’s plot, you might think that is where I would focus my Catholic energies.  While it is tempting to discuss the parallels between orthodox and Catholic religious, instead I will talk about belief in general.  People like Victory, and some of the other characters, not only believe that good things will happen, but they do well to stand out of the way of their occurrence.  We want them to happen so badly that we force something to occur often in ways in which God does not intend.  Such a result is not good for anyone, particularly for ourselves.  Victory is a great example of this because she does everything she can to make the reunion take place, and then has a simple belief that it will.  Toula can be looked at in a similar manner.  She goes all around the area asking anyone she can find about the whereabouts of Gus’ childhood friends.  It all proves fruitless.  It is not until she takes a step back that God intervenes.  Of course, faith is not really a part of this, and there are many Greek superstitions that would been frowned upon in either Catholic or Orthodox theology.  However, I think there is something to be said that what leads to the correct people being found is Ian befriending a man of God.  It also takes Toula trusting others to do what needs to be done in order for it all to come to fruition.  In Christian circles, we call this “letting go, and letting God.”  It takes wisdom to do so, and if there is any character development in this film, it is in gaining more of that trait.

Such lessons as the ones you can glean from My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 will always automatically make it better than the majority of the crap Hollywood produces, regardless of striking writers.  There are two marks against it, though.  I already mentioned the movie’s near pointless need to service a myriad of storylines, which it attempts in only an hour and a half.  The second are the stereotypes.  If there are any Greek stereotypes of which you are aware, you can probably find them here.  At best, such things are unimaginable.  At worst, they are culturally insensitive.  This film, like everything else about it, is squarely in the middle.