My Big Fat Greek Wedding II (Nia Vardalos)

We decided we had seen enough Christmas films this month, and wanted something light-weight to see.  ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding II’ seemed to fit the bill. We saw it in April 2017, which is only three and a half years ago, but since we re-watched the original ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ earlier this year, we thought it would be a good idea to see the sequel before we had forgotten all the characters.

The story takes place a decade or so after the end of the original - and the ending was just a cameo about eight years after the main film.  The actors, almost all the same ones from the first film, look around the right age, which makes sense as this film came out fourteen years after the original. Toula (Nia Vardalos) remains the start - and she was also the inspiration and writer, growing up, as she did, in a Greek-Canadian family. She’s happily married to Ian (John Corbett) although they seem to have lost some of their early intimacy… and he finds her family a bit overwhelming at times.

The most important new actress is Elena Kampouris, who plays Toula and Ian’s seventeen-year-old daughter Paris. She is perfect in the role as a teenager who loves her extended family, but is very frustrated by their extreme involvement in her life, and their determination to marry her off to a nice Greek boy, so she can make nice Greek babies. She’s the only girl in her generation - all her aunts and uncles have produced boys, who are growing up just like their grandparents. 

However the ‘wedding’ of this film isn’t related to Paris, although we’re probably supposed to think that it will be, in an echo of the first film. Part of the storyline involves her increasing bids for autonomy, as she thinks about college applications and a date for her high school prom. In fact the ‘wedding’ part feels almost like an afterthought - it involves a legal anomaly, and while there’s a lot of preparation, and the event itself, it doesn’t feel like the main focus of the film.

The cast all feel realistic, if somewhat caricatured at times; so much so that we’d forgotten that most of them are not Greek. We were reminded when we watched some of the extras including a documentary about the making of the film. They clearly all bonded so well in the first film that they were happy to work together again a decade and a half later.

I love the way that family life is seen as so important in Greek culture, even if exaggerated in its closeness. Marriages are expected to last, families are expected to support each other no matter what. The contrast of cultures is shown in the American desire for independence rather the opposite of the Greek inter-dependence; despite my own Western European background, I found myself feeling more and more drawn to the mutual supportiveness of Toula's extended family, even if she finds them frustrating at times.

There’s plenty of humour as the film cleverly manages to caricature both Greek and American culture and society - not in an unkind way, but as someone seeing both from the inside. Living in a Greek-speaking country as we do, we could appreciate a lot of the side comments and Greek language jokes that might go over the heads of some - but it’s a film that could be enjoyed by anyone.

The rating is 12 in the UK, PG-13 in the US, which surprised me as I would have expected PG in both. There are sexual references, but they’re quite mild; I don’t recall any ‘strong’ language or profanity, and there’s no violence or anything frightening.  The most steamy scene involves a married couple in a car, disturbed before anything much happens. Not that it would be of much interest to children or younger teens anyway. 

Definitely recommended.

Review copyright 2020 Sue's DVD Reviews

Nativity (Martin Freeman)

(Amazon UK link)

Having decided to watch only Christmas-related DVDs during December, our choice fell on ‘Nativity’ last night. We first saw this rather unseasonably in July 2013 and while we recalled the general outline of the story, we had entirely forgotten most of the details.

Martin Freeman is excellent as the primary school teacher Paul Maddens. We see a brief cameo of him in his former life as an actor, with his girlfriend Jennifer (Ashley Jensen) and friend Gordon (Jason Watkins). None of them is enjoying their roles as dancing elves.. So Paul and Gordon retrain as teachers, and Jennifer flies to the United States, as her dream is to become a director or producer. 

The main story takes place a few years later, when Gordon is a rather snooty teacher at a private school, while Paul is at the local state Catholic school. He’s still heartbroken by Jennifer’s defection, but he’s a fairly good teacher, albeit rather uptight and rigid in his classroom persona. Then he’s given two unwelcome surprises by the school head, Mrs Bevan (Pam Ferris). She announces that Mr Maddens is going to produce the school Nativity play that year, and that he’s having a new classroom assistant. 

Paul is horrified at the thought of trying to pull the unruly children into any kind of presentation, and even more appalled when he meets Mr Poppy (Marc Wooten) who is like an overgrown child: full of wild ideas, ready to join in the children’s games and encourage them to ignore their teacher.  It turns out that he’s Mrs Bevan’s nephew, so he can’t be fired. And gradually he and Paul do develop a kind of wary friendship.

The bulk of the story sees the children gradually pull together, with some ideas from Mr Poppy and some from Mr Maddens, and some from the children themselves. This is alongside seeing Graham’s ultra-posh and well-disciplined class determined that their performance will be better than ever.  And there’s also an unfortunate consequence of a lie told by Paul, when he gets angry with Graham’s boasting… a lie that magnifies out of all proportion, as children, parents and staff expect something that’s never going to happen.

Apparently this film was not really scripted - the director had ideas, but gave the cast a lot of freedom to come up with their own lines. Even more surprising, the children are not from a stage school - they’re random children from ordinary backgrounds who auditioned for the roles - and as a result come across as a real, likeable class.

There’s a lot of humour, some of it slapstick as the two schools clash in a snowball fight, and some of it more subtle. Martin Freeman’s expressions are superb, conveying his emotions, at times, without any need for words. Some of Mr Poppy’s ideas are also amusing in their oddness, and some of the dialogue is unexpectedly funny too. 

There’s also an important message about the importance of truthfulness, and the way that a silly lie, told on the spur of the moment, can grow to such an extent that dozens - maybe hundreds - of people can get hurt. We loved the way that the real message of Christmas shines through the glitziness and silliness, and the final performance (unsurprisingly) is extremely well done.

There's a low-key romantic thread too, involving a highly unlikely meeting in Hollywood and another during the school performance. But it doesn't matter. It's a bit schmalzy, but means there's another subplot involving Paul moving from a Scrooge-like hatred of Christmas to embracing it whole-heartedly.

Some of the extras are worth seeing, particularly the ‘deleted’ scenes, one of which is possibly my favourite ever deleted scene, involving the school priest talking to the children about lying. 

Not to be taken seriously, but definitely recommended for light-hearted family viewing at this time of year.

Review copyright 2020 Sue's DVD Reviews

The Family Stone

When I was searching online for some Christmas films, one of the recommended ones was ‘The Family Stone’. I knew we had that on our shelves; apparently we watched it in January 2014 after buying it from a UK charity shop. But neither of us had any recollection of the storyline. So we decided it would be a good one to watch last night.

The film takes place over the course of just three days in the run-up to Christmas, with a brief epilogue a year later. At the start of the film, we see adult offspring arriving at the family home. Diane Keaton is, as ever, wonderful as a slightly harassed but very affectionate mother figure (Sybil Stone). Sybil is happily married to Kelly (Craig T Nelson) and they have five very different children. 

Everett (Dermot Mulroney) is the oldest and he’s dressed, at first, like a 1940s American film star, in a suit and tie, looking slightly out of place in his rather bohemian family. He is bringing his girlfriend Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) to meet the family for Christmas. She is stressed and uptight, convinced everyone will hate her. She lacks any kind of intuition, tact or empathy, it appears, and continually makes unhelpful comments. It doesn’t help that one of Everett’s sisters, Amy (Rachel McAdams) met Meredith previously, and they did not hit it off at all. 

Everett has another sister, Susanna (Elizabeth Reaser), who is there with her daughter Elizabeth (Savannah Stehlin) who must be about eight. Elizabeth is as lacking in tact as Meredith but in rather different ways.  Their other brothers are Ben (Luke Wilson) who arrives late, dressed very casually, and makes caustic comments, and Thad (Tyrone Giordano), who is both deaf and gay, who comes with his partner Patrick (Brian White). These characters interact in ways that adult siblings might, with a deep underlying bond of affection but also a great deal of teasing. 

Several subplots blend together realistically as we learn more about each of the family members and the dynamics between them. Meredith continues to make herself increasingly disliked, calling her sister in desperation and moving to a local hotel to stay with her. But the sister, Julie (Clare Danes) turns out to be a likeable, attractive person and Everett finds himself liking her increasingly…

There’s not a whole lot of plot as this is a character-based romantic comedy with the romantic element being fairly low-key, and rather muddled at times. But there are some excellent comic moments; the expressions on Kelly’s face are superb, and there’s a brilliantly choreographed (and very messy) scene towards the end which made us laugh - not with schadenfreude, but with the clever way in which one bump or messy surface leads to neatly to a further disaster. 

We loved the way that the middle aged parents are so relaxed, on the whole. They accept their offspring’s love lives and friends and welcome them all, with plenty of food and places to sit, and a generally untidy but friendly appearance to the house. So their feeling that Meredith is the wrong person for Everett is all the more telling. We also loved the way that sign language is part of the way the family communicate with each other - something that would happen naturally when one of them is deaf. 

There’s also a very sad thread intertwining; it would be a spoiler to say what it is (and actually we don’t know many details), meaning that the epilogue scene, a year later, is bittersweet. It’s delightful - with new members of the family, and their determination to carry on - and also very poignant. 

We thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Family Stone’ and also liked seeing some of the ‘extras’ including a few deleted scenes, some  bloopers - mostly when Meredith’s character dissolves into laughter as she’s about to utter one of her tactless comments - as well as some characters discussing their roles, and the film in general.

Rated 12, probably due to several references to intimacy although there’s nothing explicit. Only minor bad language, and minor violence - one character slaps another a few times - but the film is unlikely to be of interest to younger children anyway.

Highly recommended.

Review copyright 2020 Sue's DVD Reviews

Scrooged (Bill Murray)

There are some DVDs on our shelves which we don’t recall buying or acquiring in any other way. Perhaps ‘Scrooged’ was a gift at some point; perhaps we found it on a second-hand stall. We knew it was - inevitably - a modern-day ‘Christmas Carol’, but had not seen it for at least fourteen years. However it seemed like a suitable film to watch on the first Tuesday of Advent. 

As we started watching, I wondered if we were seeing a trailer for another film at first - but it turned out that the first scene is set in a TV studio. The studio boss, Frank Cross (Bill Murray) is being shown trailers for his television’s live Christmas production of ‘A Christmas Carol’. He is very scathing about this, and proposes his own trailer, full of guns and violence, with no relevance at all to the production - but, he is convinced, certain to draw in viewers.

Frank is a bad-tempered person who thinks nothing of working his employees until all hours, ignoring their needs. He even fires someone for disagreeing with him, cancelling his Christmas bonus. He is a typecast modern-day Scrooge. He has a brother who is exaggeratedly fluffy and kind, always inviting Frank for Christmas Day, but he cares nothing for him - telling his secretary to send him (and many other acquaintances) towels for Christmas. 

The film follows the standard ‘Christmas Carol’ outline: Frank is confronted by the zombie-like body of someone who died a few years ago, and is warned that he will see the Ghost of the Christmas Past the following day. He thinks he’s had a nightmare but is disturbed enough that he calls a girl called Claire (Karen Allen) whom - he says - he hasn’t spoken to for fifteen years.

The Ghost (David Johansen), when revealed, is quite a surprise (to watchers as well as to Frank). He’s taken to scenes of his childhood, with neglectful parents, and some happier scenes when he and Claire met and got together. He also sees why they parted, and that his priorities were always work and money rather than people. 

I didn’t much like the Ghost of the Christmas Present (Carol Kane) who appears as a rather violent fairy, showing Frank scenes of other people including his secretary Grace (Alfre Woodard) and her young son Calvin (Nicholas Philips) who is unable to speak due to a trauma some years earlier. 

There are various side-stories through the film, making it more interesting than a straightforward equivalent to the Dickens classic. We see Grace and her family regularly; there are also scenes with Clare, who now works in a homeless shelter. Clearly she and Frank are still attached, but he’s still too materialistic… 

A lot of the film is fast-paced exaggerated action, which contrasts well with the more poignant human interest stories. It was produced in 1988, when there was no CGI; the various ghosts and other special effects were very well done. Bill Murray is good, acting both himself as he is, and as he was when he was rather younger, and - as with most of the cast - is caricatured rather than being a particularly believable character. I think my favourite of all the cast was the young Calvin, who had only a minor role (albeit the equivalent of ‘’Tiny Tim’ in ‘A Christmas Carol). But Nicholas Phillips’ acting ability shone through though he probably wasn’t more than about eight years old at the time. 

It wasn’t the greatest of films, though it was well done and a good one to start the Christmas season.  The rating was originally PG but updated to 12 in 2012, which I think is probably better. There’s not a lot of bad language, and no scenes of intimacy, although there’s a brief image of ‘Kama Sutra’ and women in scantily clad clothing. However there’s a surprising amount violence; some of it clearly meant to be slapstick, but some scenes could be disturbing to a sensitive child. 

Worth seeing for a different take on the Dickens classic, but I wouldn’t count ‘Scrooged’ as a favourite film. 

Review copyright 2020 Sue's DVD Reviews