My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 revives original blockbuster's charm

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 opened last weekend, 14 years after its indie predecessor smashed the box office and earned a best screenplay Oscar nomination. Although it reworks some of the original film’s best elements, the sequel still produces an honest, humorous—albeit occasionally suggestive—tribute to marriage and family.

The sequel’s storyline picks up almost 20 years after the events in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Living on the same block in Chicago with Toula (Nia Vardalos, who wrote the screenplay for both films) are four generations of her extended relations. More people means more chaos but also more hands on deck to resolve family problems. And like any family, the Portokalos clan has its share of trouble.

Toula’s daughter Paris (Elena Kampouris) wants to attend college in New York to put some space between herself and her suffocating relations, who, for example, all follow her around during her high school’s college fair. Toula, still working at the family restaurant, and her husband (John Corbett) don’t spend much time together, and they worry about being separated from their only child.

The greatest crisis occurs when Toula’s father Gus (Michael Constantine) discovers his marriage license lacks a priest’s signature. His wife Maria (Lainie Kazan) fears they’ve been living in sin for the last 50 years. But before she agrees to go through with a wedding ceremony, Maria demands Gus propose to her in a more proper manner than he did back in Greece more than a half-century earlier: “I’m going to America. You coming?”

With their well-meaning nosiness, the entire family manically plans the grandparents’ nuptials. Meanwhile, the film’s running gags usually hit the humor bulls-eye. To the chagrin of everyone he meets, Gus tries to prove he’s a direct descendent of Alexander the Great. And his two young grandsons take over his practice from the original film of asserting the Greek origins of everything.

“Chimichanga? From the Greek words for meat and purse,” one grandson explains. “Meat shaped like a purse.”

While My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 celebrates marriage and family with warmth and humor, it also includes substantial risqué material that gives the film its PG-13 rating. But the boisterous family’s sexual banter more often than not delivers a commendable message and is rarely salacious.

“Eyes open, knees shut,” Maria advises Paris bluntly on her prom night. “Not until your wedding night. Protect your poulaki.”

In fact, with the exception of an extraneous scene affirming one of the adult son’s homosexuality, the film repeatedly extols purity before and faithfulness during traditional marriage. After learning she hasn’t been officially married to Gus, Maria makes him sleep on the sofa until after their wedding ceremony. And although Gus’ chauvinism frustrates her, Maria expresses only a twinge of regret about her life.

“I could’ve traveled, instead of every morning getting mineral oil for my husband’s bowels,” she laments. Likely making every “liberated” viewer cringe, she adds, “But maybe my adventure was to make a family.”