Two decades after the franchise-inaugurating nuptials of Toula (played by writer-director Nia Vardalos), she’s leading the Greek-American Portokalos clan back to the homeland for the first time. Their mission is to fulfil their pappou’s dying wish (actor Michael Constantine died in 2021) and give his diaries to his childhood friends. That means another sloppy helping of migrant family cliches, served up with the same loving forcefulness as grandma’s moussaka.
This is mostly Greece as seen in the movies, of course, familiar from Mamma Mia! and, before that, Shirley Valentine. It’s a place of postcard-perfect blue-and-white vistas, where hospitality verges on hostage-taking and any suggestion of vegetarianism is vociferously resisted. Surprisingly, there are also some sweet but entirely superficial nods to the nation’s present day, such as a storyline about the integration of Syrian refugees and new character Victory (Melina Kotselou), the non-binary mayor of Toula’s ancestral village.
Despite such modernising, Aunt “You don’t eat no meat?” Voula, played by undersung comedy veteran Andrea Martin (SCTV, Great News), remains the greatest asset of this film series. No sooner has the plane touched down in Athens than she’s making new friends and urging them to touch her mole (“Sticks out like a toothpick in an olive!”).
Voula knows she’s all that, but the film doesn’t seem to agree. Too many scenes are wasted on other, uninteresting relatives such as Toula’s carping, college-age daughter, her insipidly Anglo-Saxon husband (a character indistinguishable from John Corbett’s other recently revived role as Sex and the City’s Aidan), or her amateur etymologist brother. He’ll trace the Hellenic origin of any words you mention. “Daft diaspora cash-in”, for instance? That’s Greek.
