Love's Greek to Me

I am used to parents manipulating their children using phrases like "we are a family", "only mommy will love you so much", so the mother in law did not leave a bad impression on me as a character. I have met worse. The actress playing her, Marina Sirtis, did a pretty good job. So did. Torrey DeVitto. As for Yiannis Tsimitselis who played the boyfriend, he is as expressionless as always. His character though was the real cringe, trying to manipulate his girlfriend using "you don't love me" and "you don't know what you want" in order to get his way with her. No, this is not love ,nor romance. This is pure gaslighting.

Unlike most Hallmark movies, the romantic couple is already together from the start. So the entire drama comes down to planning a wedding, which to me shouldn't be a drama at all. I know people get a bit crazy about weddings, but a lot of it comes down to planning and random errands being run. That's not much to sustain a movie, so of course the writers chose to make the bride's mother in law a terror. In between moments of her being terrible, we get to watch the lead couple tasting wine and forcing out the most cringeworthy lines. Unfortunately, this movie was not funny enough to carry the weight of such an overbearing mother in law. Who would marry into this mess? It was unpleasant to watch and made me want to find a more conventional Hallmark "meet and fall in love" movie without the annoying inlaws.

Everyone in this movie sooo needs therapy. Like run, girl, run. Or see you soon on reddit making "AITA for wanting some privacy and deciding for myself". I mean, they keep gaslighting and accusing the girl for keeping a distance when actually all she does is adapting to her boyfriend's family, him and all. "Oh you don't want to have your life changed in a moment, then maybe you don't love me at all". They have ZERO chemistry together and he doesn't even try. And him and his family are constantly like "well, you don't have any traditions so you'll have to follow a million of our", "uuu I can't say no to my mummy". Whaaaat. That made me so angry and sad for her.

I liked seeing Martina Sirtis again after a long time not paying attention (remember Star Trek Next Generation?). I am half Greek and have lived in Greece, though have never been to Santorini. The execution was well done, but not perfect. 2 examples: when members of the male lead's family are talking amongst themselves, the fact that they speak English is understandable because of the English-speaking target audience, but they say "grandma" when basically everyone (I think, by now), knows that "yiayia" is Greek for grandma. Second example: when the male lead's sister gets married to her Greek husband in the church, the priest says, at the end, "You may kiss the bride" in English. This, after all the authentic ceremonial lead-up to that moment. He should have stayed in Greek because they kissed right after. Something else that really annoyed me was the last scene, where the 2 leads finally get married. There was no hint of religion--not even an officiant!--and in front of his "traditional" family, including "yiayia." I'm pretty traditional, so consider it an affront to Greek tradition to have such a liaison (couldn't really call it a wedding without someone officiating). Well, the scenery was great, at least.

Setting in Santorini is beautiful. Would love to know which hotel this was filmed. It is very disappointing that Hallmark took two hours of dealing with a meddling mother-in-law and neither the groom or fiancé would stand up to her in one conversation. It's very frustrating to watch. One conversation with the mother-in-law would've ended the issue. I would've preferred they elaborated more on the couples negotiating, and how to make it work, rather than the mother-in-law being the focal point of the problems. New times and American generations have no problem expressing their desires to an overbearing person.