Contour At The Movies

Overall Impression – My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a great romantic comedy which I’ve enjoyed many times and still like to watch.  At the same time, I always get the feeling that something is missing.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Toula.

What’s she trying to accomplish? – Professional: Get married.  Personal: Get her family, particularly her father, to accept Ian, a non-Greek, into the family.  Private: Get away from the restaurant and have a fulfilling life.

Who’s trying to stop her? – Gus, her father.

What happens if she fails? — Toula will be unhappy. Not living with the man she loves and being stuck in the restaurant will make her life empty, without any meaning. In other words…figuratively DEAD!

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan — Toula is a single 30-year-old woman, working in her family’s restaurant, the “Dancing Zorba’s”. She feels that she is missing out on life and is afraid that this might be it. Toula would like to study at the City College so she could get away from the restaurant, but dares only to secretly dream about this.

Wanderer — Meeting a high-school teacher, Ian Miller, makes her wish to study even stronger.  With her mother’s help they convince her father that taking computer classes would improve the restaurant business. Starting this course, she changes her appearance totally: contact lenses instead of glasses; wearing make-up and nice clothes. She takes a class in computers and tourism. Knowing that her aunt has a travel agency, she decides to take this class, hoping she can work there, this way escaping the restaurant. Together with her aunt and her mother, they manipulate the situation letting her father think that it was his brilliant idea of sending Toula to work at the aunt’s travel agency.

Warrior — At her new job, she meets Ian Miller again. They start a relationship in secret, behind her family’s back, because they would never approve her dating a non-Greek. However, her cousin Nikki tells her that the family knows: a neighbor saw them together. Ian asks Toula’s father permission to date her, but he refuses. They however stay together, become more intimate as time goes on. Ian proposes, and the father accepts their coming marriage, although not without complaint. To make it easier for the family, Ian (who is not religious anyway) converts to the Greek orthodox faith.

 Martyr — Trying to please the family, Ian converts to Greek orthodox. For his part, Gus gives in and accepts Ian.  It doesn’t appear that Toula sacrifices much, if anything.

 AND, IN THE END…

Is Toula giving up something in the end? Or is it Ian who asks the father if it’s OK to date her (taking her fight), converts to the Greek orthodox faith to please the father (changing his religion)? Ian even tries to learn their language. It seems to me that during the warrior part, it’s Iam who is the hero and not Toula. During the wedding, it’s the Millers who adapt themselves and start to enjoy the Greek partying lifestyle, and it is Gus who accepts the differences between the families by saying that even while we are different fruits (apple and orange), we are all still fruit.  Maybe this is why I feel something’s missing: Toula isn’t actively driving several of the key moments.

– André van Haren

Overall Impression — A teen love story with vampires, not a vampire story with teen lovers.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? — Bella.

What’s she trying to accomplish? — Fall in love with Edward and have him love her back…without it costing her life.

Who’s trying to stop her? — Edward (and also James and also Jacob and also her father and also her friends.  I told you it was a teen love story!) 

What happens if she fails? — She will be either killed or turned into a vampire herself.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan — Bella leaves the sun of Arizona for the clouds of Washington state, starts at a new school and moves in with the father she hasn’t seen much.

Wanderer — She meets Edward and senses that there’s something odd about him.  She starts trying to figure it out.  Bella puts the pieces together and figures out that he’s a vampire.  She’s also now in love with him.

Warrior —  They fight to figure out how to be together without Edward losing control and killing her.  They also discover another group of vampires are working the area, and the most vicious one has caught Bella’s scent.

Martyr — Bella abandons her father in order to protect him and flees James’ pursuit of her.  Edward and his entire vampire family risk themselves to keep her safe, and ultimately Bella is willing to sacrifice herself to protect her mother from James.  

AND, IN THE END…

This was one deliberately paced movie.  Slow, no graphic violence, much more hormonal than hemoglobal.   That’s because it’s a love story, first and foremost.

In love stories, the question is never “will the lovers get together?” but rather “with all of the obstacles standing in their way, how will the lovers ever get together?”  Twilight excels in that it knows exactly what it is.  Edward’s curse is that he’s a vampire; the obstacle to him and Bella being together because the more he wants to be with her, the harder it is for him to control his bloodlust.  How’s THAT for an obstacle?   And even at the end of TWILIGHT, the question of how will they be able to be together is only answered in the short term.  Edward is 17 and will never age.  Bella is 16.  What happens when she catches up to him?  What happens as she gets older than him?  How will they be able to be together without her being turned into a vampire (or, please no, Edward being turned human in some “never tried before on a vampire” experiment contrivance?)

I haven’t read the books, but now I understand why my teenage daughters (and my wife!) are so keen to find out how it all will end.

– Jeffrey Alan Schechter