A Tale of Two Movies: The Delicate Balance of Family Toxicity in Comedy

We’re mixing up the formula, kids. Instead of reviewing a movie for this minisode, we’re reviewing… two movies.

Bam.

The other difference is we’ve actually seen both of the movies (Monster in Law and My Big Fat Greek Wedding) before. Olivia and I both have seen MBFGW at least half a dozen times and love it to pieces, and we both also saw MIL once when we were like thirteen. Needless to say, our memories of the latter were hazy.

But oh, how we wish we could go back to that blissful haze. I could have lived my whole life feeling nothing but positively about Jane Fonda’s filmography. But no. We had to watch this garbage fire. For you. The things we do for parasocial love.

In an extremely satisfying turn of events, Olivia and I both had written basically the same theory in our notes on both movies. We both independently set out to find out why MBFGW worked when MIL didn’t. After all, they both feature similar themes of dysfunction in families and how it disenfranchises younger generations. But why did Nia Vardalos’ masterpiece become such a smash success (with a Best Original Screenplay nomination at the Academy Awards to boot) while MIL hovers at a dismal 18% on Rotten Tomatoes? What went wrong?

We explore it in more detail in the episode, but it comes down to one thing: Love. These are comedies, folks! And neither present themselves as black comedies—they both use the film language, pacing, beats, even music of jaunty little pieces of fun. MBFGW absolutely succeeds at meeting those criteria; Toula’s family is funny even when they’re being nuisances (or actively hurting Toula!) because Nia Vardalos knows the difference between good intentions and cruelty. You can tell by her script that she truly believes her family’s poor communication and occasional selfishness is borne from a place of genuine care and concern. Toula’s father doesn’t urge her to find a “good Greek boy” to marry and have kids with because he thinks Toula is incapable of anything else—he just doesn’t know that anything else would lead to a satisfying life. He genuinely believes that he’s guiding his daughter toward the best path, and it takes time and effort to show him that his own biases may be incorrect. MBFGW works as a comedy because we know implicitly that it’s okay to laugh at even the cringiest, most uncomfortable moments. We see the misguided attempts at expressing love that we know from our own families. So, we laugh.

MIL uses that same film language to express itself: funny, bouncy music, bright colors, a love story, etc. But we both maintain that, with a music and lighting change, this movie could be a horror film without any changes to the script. There is no love between any of the character—and we’re not just talking about Charlie and Viola! There seems to be very little (if any) genuine affection between any combination of characters, including Charlie and her fiance, Kevin. Their behavior around each other communicates, at best, self-centered disdain and, at worst, outright derision. They hurt each other on purpose, lie to each other to keep hurting each other, dismiss and gaslight each other—the list goes on. It all builds to a routine of Charlie and Viola finding ways to torture each other until both independently almost kill one another. And even then, there’s no moment of realization for them! They remain completely apathetic to their attempted murders, and they seemingly learn nothing as the plot progresses. This movie doesn’t work as a comedy because there’s nothing funny about it. And there’s certainly no catharsis. In MBFGW, we have the benefit of watching Toula’s family change and grow as they get to know her fiance, Ian, and his family. In MIL, the big finale arrives with Charlie and Viola suddenly learning all the lessons they need to (except not really), and just… forgiving each other? And agreeing to move forward without any actionable recovery for either of them. They just sort of decide to be better people. It’s unsatisfying and unearned.

In a nutshell, it comes down to the spirit in which both movies were made. Nia Vardalos based her movie on her own experiences with her own family, and it’s clear from her writing that she loves that family—and trusts them to love her. MIL assumes the worst of humanity and leans into it, presenting it as fact and, therefore, something to laugh at. It presents its characters in a mean-spirited way, and it encourages the viewer to be mean-spirited in laughing at them.

By the way, if you like MIL, that’s cool. People resonate with different things, and I can see someone finding catharsis if they’ve lived through an emotionally incestuous relationship between and spouse and their parent. But, I encourage you to check in with which parts of yourself this (and movies like it) feeds. We also thought MIL was fine when we were younger! But distance from the mentality in which it was made makes it easier to see the ways in which it’s a monument to things we don’t want to perpetuate.

Art (and, by consequence, film) is one of the ways we preserve the lessons we want to keep alive for future generations. MIL crystalizes a certain attitude, outlook, and way of engaging with the world—it was clearly important enough for an entire production team to make it! But after really exploring its internal belief system, we agree that it’s something most likely best left in the past.