Texan Mosaic

by JENNY GARZA//Entertainment Editor

She only wanted her daughter near her.

This is all Toula Miller wanted in the second installment to “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”

The first film, which came out in 2002, begins with following the life of Fotoula “Toula” Portakalos (Nia Vardalos), who is Greek and not very pretty. By the age of 30, she was still not married. In a  Greek family, this is very bad for her and the family.  She is stuck until one day a very handsome man comes into her life.

After that, her life changes. She begins changing the way she looks, her job, and who she has in her life.

She begins dating Ian Miller (John Corbett),  and they become very serious and want to marry. When this happens, he decides to become Greek and enter into their faith.

Her father is very close to her, so when she begins making all these different changes, her father becomes worried that she will leave him and not return to him.

As the film continues, Ian must be baptized and begin learning the traditions of the Greeks. Also, Toula must figure out how to balance her family and Ian.

They are all working their way to having one big fat Greek wedding.

In the second film, all of the original cast members have come back. It begins with Toula and her daughter Paris getting into her father’s car to go to work and drop all of the grandkids off at school. Like Toula before her, Paris is given a hard time by Gus that she will need to find a husband soon and have babies.

Toula is helping raise her daughter and keep her close, as her husband also is busy  helping her parents with everything they have to do. So Toula begins to feel stuck, not being able to help herself be the person she was before she was a mother or a wife.

Gus gets an idea one day to prove that he is a direct descendent of Alexander the Great. So Toula and the rest of the family must show him how to run a computer. He begins putting all the information he needs into the website when he discovers that he and his wife Maria are not married by the church and have basically been living in  sin for more than 50 years.

This creates tension all around the family, from them fighting about whether they should be married, to Toula and Ian just worrying their daughter will leave them and they won’t know what to do with themselves because they don’t know how not to be parents.

Gus one day gets stuck in the bath tub and his sons and son-in-law must help him out of the tub because he does not want anyone to call an ambulance. When the others start getting hurt, Toula breaks down and calls the ambulance.

Her father gives in and asks Maria to marry him because she chooses not to go to the hospital with him because they are not married. Maria, of course, agrees, and they immediately start planning one big, fat Greek wedding again.

At the same time, Paris asks a boy to prom. It’s also the same night as her grandparents’ wedding.

This sequel is just as amazing as the first one that came out.  It shows how a family that did not like change grows and is introduced to the changing world around them. They are OK with change and all the things that come with it, from having a son who is gay to getting a son-in-law who is an Anglo.

It also shows how a mother must let go of her daughter, let her grow and find out things on her own. It involves two sets of parents who must find their footing after their daughter wants to leave, or they discover something that was not supposed to happen.

The comedic plot is absolutely superb and will get you to laugh so hard it hurts your sides.

I love this movie and will gladly watch it at least another time. I advise viewers to take their mothers because it is an excellent movie to watch to see how they handled a situation that you both may have been in recently or in the past.

For all these things and more, I give this film 5 out of 5 stars.