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Consider the challenges facing each movie's principal characters. Whereas Toula consummates her romance with Ian long before her parents give their consent, the bride in Monsoon must choose between a passionate affair with her former boss and an arranged marriage. Ian can get by with little more than laid-back open-mindedness and that magical culture-changing baptism, but Monsoon's groom must decide whether to forgive his fiancée for resuming her affair on the eve of their wedding. In Greek, the father of the bride is a hapless character, stage-managed by the women in his life, but in Monsoon's most striking subplot, the father must decide how to face a decades-old pattern of family sin.

An on-screen baptism reinforces America's most cherished dreams of self-fulfillment; a Hindu wedding makes fidelity and forgiveness attractive. Nobody could have predicted it—because nobody knows anything. Even today hardly anybody knows, or notices, that while Vardalos's film astonished the industry with its fifty-fold return on its $5 million budget, Nair's celebration of arranged marriage, repentance, and responsibility earned $14 million in the U.S. on a budget of only $146,000, returning a hundredfold.

It's a small victory, but it does make you wonder if Somebody knows something after all.

Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

CT's Film Forum reviewed My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Monsoon Wedding.

Many of Crouch's other writings are available at his and his wife's web site.

Earlier Andy Crouch columns for Christianity Today include:

Wrinkles in Time | Botox injections as a spiritual discipline. (Aug. 11, 2003)

Rites of Passage | Self-improvement is our culture's most durable religion. (June 6, 2003)

Christian Esperanto | We must learn other cultural tongues. (June 4, 2003)

We're Rich | But why is it so hard to admit? (Feb. 20, 2003)

Blinded by Pop Praise | To see God "high and lifted up," just open your eyes. (Dec. 17, 2002)

The Future Is P.O.D. | Multicultural voices have an edge in reaching a rapidly changing America. (October 12, 2002)

Rekindling Old Fires | We can resist technology's chilling effects on how we spend time together. (August 2, 2002)

Interstate Nation | The national highway system is a lesson in how to transform a nation. (June 21, 2002)

Amplified Versions | Worship wars come down to music and a power plug. (April 17, 2002)

Thou Shalt Be Cool | This enduring American slang leaves plenty out in the cold. (March 18, 2002)

Borrowing Against Time | We live in a fallen world. We will die. We need to face that. (Jan. 17, 2002)

Grounded | Our technologies give us an illusion of omnipresence—most of the time. (Nov. 15, 2001)

Zarathustra Shrugged | What apologetics should look like in a skeptical age. (Sept. 5, 2001)

Consuming Passions | One man's "testimony" from the First Great Mammon Awakening. (July 10, 2001)

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October 2003, Vol. 47, No. 10