When I chose to watch ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3’, I honestly only picked it because I had seen the first two and I wanted to watch a movie that would make me laugh. Boy, was I wrong. While the movie does indeed have its funny moments that make you laugh out loud and that you can’t help but enjoy the chaos of a big family, it also touches on something more real and heartfelt. Something that, if you have lived it you’ll feel it in your heart. Before you continue reading, I have to warn you that this review contains spoilers!

I don’t know about you but I have watched the first two films countless times and I could still watch them on repeat. However, in this third instalment the plot shifts to a heavier one. It follows Toula (Nia Vardalos) and Ian (John Corbett) alongside their daughter Paris (Elena Kampouris) and their family: Theia Voula (Andrea Martin), Theia Freida (Maria Vacratsis), Nick (Louis Mandylor) and Aristotle (Elias Kacavas) as they embark on their first ever trip to Greece. Their goal? To fulfil the wish of Toula’s father Gus (Michael Constantine honoured throughout the film after his passing in real life) to deliver his journal to his childhood friends and reconnect him with the roots that he never had the chance to revisit.

I personally feel like I should have seen it coming from the start but I didn’t expect the story to feel so real and heartbreaking. I was hooked from the very first moment with the opening song ‘Opa’ by Giorgos Alkaios as I couldn’t help but join in saying ‘Opa!’ every time they did. There is just something about Greek music that grabs you and makes you crave more.

We see the family experiencing Greece for the very first time as they walk through the villages, meet locals and explore the town and traditions of their father’s hometown. Their awe and the discovery of the country, the traditions and the people are exactly what I would expect to feel the first time I visit Greece. While I expected more of the usual relationship/wedding centred chaos, what stayed with me was something different and honestly I think it works better this way. Watching the family set foot in their dad’s town without him there was simply devastating and deeply moving.

One line that particularly stuck with me is: ‘That’s how an immigrant family survives. Working together, sticking together, running a restaurant.’ I feel like it perfectly describes the sacrifices, the long hours, the resilience and the togetherness that define so many families that left their home looking for a better future. When Toula said, ‘My dad never went back. It’s what immigrant parents do. Work hard, give it all to the kids, so we can take the trip they never did. It doesn’t seem right.’ I honestly couldn’t agree more with Toula, it doesn’t seem right and it’s not right but it’s a reality for so many parents who give up their own chance of returning to their home so their children can have a life they couldn’t. As a child of a migrant family, I couldn’t help but feel the weight of it and the heaviness of this reality.

Throughout the movie, there were so many shots that reminded me of my own experiences but also were universal that anyone with a family history of migration will recognise. The loneliness of Gus’s hometown as the people move away in search of something better was gut-wrenching. It honestly mirrors what happens in so many towns around the world as people leave looking for a better life and leave behind the empty house and their memories.

I couldn’t help but hope that Toula would find her father’s childhood friends as her determination adds a layer of bittersweetness. While she is, for the first time in Greece a country with so much beauty and history she keeps circling back to her father. When Nick revealed that he had carried his father’s urn to Greece, it gave me goosebumps. The way that Gus could only return to his roots as ashes rather than in person and with his family simply was devastating, to say the least. At the end, when Toula, Nick and their half-brother Peter scattered their father’s ashes under the tree, I honestly couldn’t hold back the tears. And honestly, who could at such a scene?

Of course, in a typical ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ movie we still had many awkward, over-the-top and cringeworthy moments. Who didn’t laugh and agree with ‘Greek aunties. Better than dating apps?’ It made me consider searching for a Greek auntie to see if they are better than dating apps myself. Although we get to laugh and enjoy the film, I believe this movie is more than that. Maybe because I am the child of parents who left their home, family and everything behind in search of a better future this movie hits me right in the heart and I can’t seem to see it for the laughing moments only.

I think not only because of how much I see my family in this movie but also it’s stuck with me because of how much it is like a mirror to real life. Families like mine and like so many others have lived these emotions: the nostalgia, the longing of going back home, the heartbreak of two homes and not fully belonging in either. I love that this movie doesn’t shy away from showing the pain and heartbreak. If you follow me on social media, you probably saw that I already shared some feelings in my post about how much I relate to this movie. Now, writing this review I realise how much it hit me as I can’t stop thinking about the way Gus never got to go back with his family to his hometown, the heartbreak Toula and Nick must feel to be in the town their dad talked about and loved so much without him, to wish things were different, to find strength in pain, to be there for one another in painful situations. 

‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3’ isn’t just a simple continuation of a beloved comedy franchise. It’s a story about family, sacrifice, heritage and love. It’s about what is lost, what is carried forward and what we owe to the people who gave everything so we could have the lives they never did. It’s a film that mirrors the life of so many families in all its beauty and pain. It will make you smile, laugh, cry and if your family ever had to leave home behind, it will hit you in ways you don’t expect.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3’ is perfect. It’s not. But I’m giving it 7 out of 7 because it made me feel something so deeply, so real, so close to home. For me, the emotional, heartfelt and real emotion the movie transmits is more important than perfection.

Also, I fear I will forever use ‘Sopa’ and ‘Opa’ from now on. I should look into adding Greek on Duolingo.