I watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding the other day. I hadn’t seen it since it was in theaters back in 2002, but I wanted to cook gyros, so what choice did I have but to pair it with this movie? The movie was still good—John Corbett and Nia Vardalos’ chemistry as the two leads was still strong and the writing didn’t always fall to easy stereotyping. But, like almost all romantic comedies, it was easy and uncomplicated, a little too stupid for you to tell your friends to run out and rent it. Unless they have serious nostalgia for leftover ‘90s styling. Because then I’d recommend it to them for sure.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding tells the story of Fotoula “Toula” Portokalos (Vardalos), a 30 year-old woman who still lives with her uber-Greek parents in Chicago. All they want, she says, is for her to find a nice Greek boy and produce nice Greek babies. She is sloppy when we first meet her, wearing huge glasses, of course, and pouring coffee to patrons in her parents’ Greek restaurant. She sees Ian Miller (Corbett) at her restaurant one day and behaves awkwardly towards him.

But, unlike most romantic movie tropes, her transformation from her frumpy self is not motivated by this interaction. In fact, Toula has no expectations of ever seeing Ian Miller again. Perhaps the movie’s saving grace, Toula saves herself from her dull life at the restaurant, rather than waiting for a man to save her. She tells her father Gus (Michael Constantine, in a brilliant turn in accurate casting, a Greek actor)—with her mother Maria’s (Lanie Levine) help—that she was going to take computer classes. In her classes, she takes more care with her appearance and takes a job running her aunt’s travel agency.

In the window of the travel agency, Ian sees the new and improved Toula and goes in to talk to her. This sudden turn of events isn’t disgusting or annoying like in so many movies—Toula hasn’t lost weight, she doesn’t dress extravagantly, she hasn’t had plastic surgery to fix her big fat Greek nose. Instead, she just has more confidence in herself and confidence to talk to Ian. Their love spirals and soon enough, Toula tells her parents she is going to marry a WASP, not a Greek. At first, they are shocked and disappointed, but eventually come to accept Ian. At the end of the movie, Ian and Toula are shown with living with their young daughter in a house right next to Toula’s parents’.

The movie is sweet and enjoyable, despite its problems. I wasn’t aware that Greek was such a difficult ethnicity to be in the United States—Ian’s waspy parents can’t remember if his father’s old secretary was Greek or Armenian—but the movie makes it out to have the similar ethnic complications as a comedic version of the movie like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.  Chicago is populated with a huge Greek community, but people of all ethnicities still eat bacon and eggs in Greektown’s diners like anywhere else. But still, Toula’s family has a Greek flag and roasts a goat on their front lawn. Ian’s parents, too, somehow produce a laid-back kind of guy with their too-Midwestern-to-be-real propriety and matching turtleneck sweaters. This type of over-the-top stereotyping is funny, but unnecessary. It’s too easy for a talented writer like Vardalos.