My Life In Ruins
I still can’t figure out how or why movies like this are greenlighted. From the opening, postcard-styled titles, Georgia (Nia Vardalos) nearly beats us to death with exposition for the subtextually-impaired. “People come here from all over to see the ancient ruins,” says Georgia. You don’t say? I thought they went to Detroit for that. In Greece, she tells us, “They find their kefi.” Kefi is greek for “mojo”… “mojo” is American for “This is going to be another terrible romance-comedy with infatuation, a misunderstanding, sage wisdom at the two-thirds mark, and a boost in tourism for the shooting location.”
The infatuation is, of course, unknown to her at first. Georgia, a travel guide, is beset by misfortune and unhappiness… But enter a strangely-bearded bus driver named Poupi (the first in a number of excruciatingly bad attempts at humor), who starts out looking like a homeless man and, as you can guess, progressively looks more like Yanni as the film goes on. Why not Demis Roussos? But nevermind. Yanni— er, Poupi… isn’t alone. Stereotypes abound, strangely, in a film that is marketed as being “from Nia Vardalos” (though she has no producing, writing or directing credit here). There are the loud, obnoxious Americans (Rachel Dratch and Harland Williams), the uppity brits (Caroline Goodall and Ian Ogilvy), the sex-crazed latinas and a group of friendly Canadians—the gag being they later lose their cool… the list goes on. Oh, and there is the tour guide for the Canadians, Nico (Alistair McGowan looking like a cross between Joe Flaherty and a bottle of Brylcreem), who competes with Georgia to put on the best tour.
Georgia’s problem, as Poupi sees it, is that she takes the history of Greece too seriously. I didn’t find fault with that. Can I be the only person who would go to Greece to actually learn something about its architecture, culture, people, and history?
Poupi keeps dropping hints that he likes Georgia, but of course this is a romance-comedy and there must be a misunderstanding. One of the tourists, Marc (Brian Palermo), inadvertently becomes her target of lust when he gets sunblock in his eye and starts blinking. Has there ever been a lazier Meet Cute running interference in a plot? It gets worse…
The pacing and scenes are so choppy and uneven, one gets the impression there were two whole movies that were whittled down to two half-movies instead of one cogent narrative. Irv (Richard Dreyfuss wasting his talent), a retired widower, is on the vacation he and his wife never got around to taking. Immediately after relating this story to us, Georgia interjects, “Let’s go shopping!” The film’s only tender moment, and only thoughtfully-crafted character, are undercut by the desire to get the rom-com adventure back on the rails. Leave it to Hollywood to take a bad idea and make it terrible.
My Life In Ruins • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 • Running Time: 95 minutes • MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content. • Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures