PINCHED NERVE Vardalos shushes Corbett.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding took flak for its cheap ethnic humor; that won’t be the case with Vardalos’s second star vehicle in a month, which sees all its characters as blithering idiots. Vardalos plays a flower-shop owner who’s always, always chirpy; mistaking the fact that Dad cheated on Mom as ipso facto proof that relationships never work, she’s decided that a five-date limit works best for the species. Almost as plausible as intelligent design, this theory will be tested by the owner of a new restaurant called Get on Tapas (not funny the first, second or eighth time), played by bland-o-matic Corbett. Soon they’ll be arguing about whether a sleepover counts as a date and whether breaking the five-date rule with a call looks needy.

As the recipients of her atrocious advice, Vardalos’s entourage of misfits (Kazan deserves better than this) conspires to bring the lovebirds back together—an endeavor that goes about as well as everything else in the movie. “Why do I stand here with my hands in my pockets, chained to a comfortable spot of fear?” Corbett asks in his most reflective moment, suggesting that first-time director Vardalos is as adept at writing metaphors as she is at singing, rhyming and editing. Children who see this film at an impressionable age risk inhibiting their social growth.

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