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Hanks might enjoy a Greek honeymoon!
Why Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson decided to produce My Big Fat Greek Wedding
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Arthur J Pais
Tom Hanks is the man to be envied this week. Road To Perdition, in which he plays a gangster who fights hard to protect his own only surviving son, has reached $91 million, and is on its way to a $100 million benchmark.
He is also --- and not too many people know this --- is the producer, along with wife Rita Wilson, of a small-budget movie which this week swept into the sixth position in the top 10 list, earning a big $5.8 million, and taking its gross to $53 million. Starting in only a handful of movie houses 18 weeks ago, My Big Fat Greek Wedding has become arguably the most profitable film of the year so far, if you consider its budget and gross.
Some box-office analysts even believe it could reach $100 million. Last weekend, it added more than 300 screens to its 730 screen count, and given the terrific result this week, another expansion is expected coming Friday.
It has done far more business than Mira Nair's hit film Monsoon Wedding, which is winding down with a highly lucrative $14 million for a movie that barely cost $1.5 million. It drew many fab reviews and became the first (mostly) Hindi-language movie to reach mainstream audiences in America in a significant way.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding won no kudos at major film festivals, like Monsoon Wedding, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival
Greek Wedding is also distributed by the little-known company, IFC, while Monsoon Wedding was distributed by a division of Universal Pictures. Of the two movies, Greek Wedding is certainly having the best honeymoon.
The English-language movie, which cost about $2.5 million, was directed by Joel Zwick, a Canadian and TV sitcom director. It is the kind of the film that defines the phrase sleeper hit.
People who have seen both Monsoon Wedding and Greek Wedding acknowledge the former is more artistic and has better performances. But it is still a foreign language film, they say.
Though Greek Wedding also deals with an ethnic community, it is still a film about people who happen to be white, Christian and speak English, they point out. Apart from the charm and exotica involving a colorful ethnic community, the comedic movie also celebrates ordinary people who dare to dream of happiness and fulfillment. And it is this factor that has endeared it to the mainstream.
Several reviewers who had wondered if the film would have any life outside the Greek communities must have been stunned by its growing popularity. The names of Tom Hanks and his actress wife Rita Wilson as producers also
helped the film.
About four years ago, Rita Wilson who is of Greek origin, saw a one-woman autobiographical show written by Nia Vardalos who also starred in it. It was about how 30-year-old, plain-looking Toula Portokalos (Vardalos) gets tired of working in a Greek restaurant owned by her parents, and how she rejects her parents wish and marries a non-Greek.
Wanting to be her own woman, Toula had joined a computer class defying her father. Tired of being made fun of her looks, she gives herself a new hairdo, contacts, makeup and colourful clothes. That is how she meets the schoolteacher she would finally marry. The man of her choice is not only a WASP, but also a vegan. He doesn't even eat lamb, complain Toula's relatives.
But Toula hopes he can still make himself acceptable to her family and relatives --- if he can get baptised at a Greek Orthodox Church, and go through a big Greek wedding where hundreds of relatives and Greek acquaintances would be invited.
This is a movie with a universal appeal. It doesn't have many dramatic moments or smart dialogue or outstanding performances, but it is hilarious in many places and has many touching sequences. While Vardalos, who has given a heartfelt performance, is poking fun at her own people, she hasn't shown the WASP family in a good light. But the audiences do not seem to care about the stereotypes.
For many years, only films about Italian Americans seemed to have wide appeal, to a great extent due to the artistry such directors as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola brought to them.
But many films dealing with other ethnic communities haven't had big luck. Nair's own The Perez Family, set in Miami around Cuban immigrants, was a dud, with the critics and the audiences. On the other hand, American Desi, a much smaller film than Perez Family grossed nearly $1 million in North America over a year ago.
The huge success of Greek Wedding would perhaps spur more ethnic comedies and dramas. Will there be more Tom Hanks and Rita Wilsons to back them?