MOVIE REVIEWS

Review by CinemaSerf

With their mother suffering from dementia, a family are faced with a bit of impending mortality and decide it's time to head back to their ancestral Greek homeland for a family reunion. "Toula" (the film's auteur Nia Vardalos) and her American husband "Ian" (John Corbett) head off with her body-grooming obsessed brother "Nick" (Louis Mandylor), a pair of sagely aunts and the lovestruck - though they don't yet know it - "Paris" (Elena Kampouris) and "Aristotle" (Elias Kacavas). Upon arrival they meet the local mayor "Victory" (Melina Kotselou). Now she's an enthusiastic young woman whom, it turns out, has maybe been talking up this gathering. Indeed, the visitors might well be the only people who are coming! Their welcome locally is a bit hit and miss thanks to the imperious, curmudgeonly, and rather ubiquitous old "Alexandra" (the scene-stealing Anthi Andreopoulou) but gets slightly more friendly when they all discover just how closely related they all are, and after the hunt starts for some old friends of their father who left the island many years ago... What now ensues is the gentlest of family comedies that raises the very occasional smile; plays a lot to stereotype and generally presents us with a beautifully shot, entirely predictable, soap opera. Kampouris and Kacavas provide the eye candy, and the aunties dispense some words of wisdom now and again allowing Lainia Kazan ("Maria") to remind me a lot of Joan Rivers. Otherwise, though, this is entirely forgettable summer fayre that smacks a little of "Mamma Mia" (2008) only without the toe-tappers. It's watchable but very unremarkable.