Review from The Post-Intelligencer B+

:)It also features a strong supporting cast that includes David Duchovny, who has lost his dour "X-Files" scowl and, as Vardalos' love interest, proves he can play light --
____________________________________

Vardalos ('Greek Wedding') gets it right in her new comedy

By PAULA NECHAK
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

GRADE: B+

Even though Nia Vardalos' second movie, "Connie and Carla," was already "a script in her drawer" when her first fairy-tale, feel-good film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" enjoyed its surprising box office orbit, it is a better, less obvious,delightfully refreshing and funny film.

It succeeds in refurbishing what sounds like a worn and stale concept -- movies about men or women pretending to be the other sex -- even if you have to willingly suspend disbelief to buy it.

Connie (Vardalos) and Carla (Toni Collette) are childhood best friends who long for life to really be a cabaret. Their dream of stardom has taken them only as far as airport bars, where they perform their repertoire of established show tunes to tired, cranky travelers less than moved by their amateurish creative enthusiasm.

When they see their debt-ridden boss, Frank, brutally murdered by thugs during a drug deal gone bad, the women hit the road, setting out for parts "where there is no dinner theater, no culture at all" -- Los Angeles.

In West Hollywood, they land a job as the main act at The Handlebar, a gay club, by pretending to be men pretending to be women -- and find not only the fame they've craved but a few other surprises as well.

Vardalos populates her story with sweetly complex characters who, despite the frosting, feel familiar, and if she made a movie that tried too hard and felt forced in "Greek Wedding," she's struck just the right chord of laughs and heart with a script that hits the occasional raw nerve in its probing of family and friendship.

It also features a strong supporting cast that includes David Duchovny, who has lost his dour "X-Files" scowl and, as Vardalos' love interest, proves he can play light -- and makes us wonder where he's been recently.

Still, it's the chemistry between Vardalos and Collette that gives the film its magical dazzle. Despite Vardalos' ingratiating, big and breathy presence, Collette, as the pulse and conscience of these two dreamers, very nearly steals the film.

__________________