My Life In Ruins (Valley Scene Magazine, July 26, 2009)

My Life In Ruins
By Rei Nishimoto

The flood of summer releases has been dominated by sci-fi remakes, horror films and comedies, which have been heavily hyped to pull in audiences. My Life In Ruins is one of the few films that captures audiences with a story from the heart and a human touch.

The film features Nia Vardalos (also of 2002's My Big Fat Greek Wedding) playing Georgia, a Greek-American history professor who came to Athens to find her kefi (Greek for mojo). She eventually finds herself working as a professional tour guide for Pangloss Tours, as a way of finding equally eager people who shared her knowledge of Ancient Greece.

Vardalos brings warmth and sincerity to her character, playing an often uptight person who is also passionate about Greek history, which attempting to share that with others.

The film captured many breathtaking views of the ancient Greek sites. Unlike a documentary, each scene is worked in with the tour group's chaotic personality and brings a humorous touch. Director Donald Petrie managed to find a strong midpoint towards bringing both elements to the film.

Georgia finds herself with travelers who are only interested in lounging at the famous Greek beaches and shopping more than seeing the famous heritage sites she knows very well. Due to her refusal to adapt to the group, she earns unfavorable ratings. This leads to her boss (played by Brenice Stegers) to cut a deal with another tour guide, Nico (played by British comedian Alistair McGowan) to force her to quit with his obnoxious methods and backstabbing ways.

Georgia is stuck with a tour bus without working air conditioning, accommodations with the crummiest hotels Greece had to offer, and was paired with a bus driver with a heavy beard and was thought to be a mute named Procopi "Poupi" Kakas (played by Greek actor Alexis Georgoulis).

Nico is following the same route, but often unleashes sets of mean pranks such as buying the group ice cream on a hot day and dinner at the Hard Rock Café. This pushes Georgia to her breaking point, often thinking about abandoning the tour and her life in Greece.

Georgia attempts to write a letter of resignation from the hotel, which that also goes sour. Vardalos' real life husband, actor Ian Gomez, plays the hotel clerk that mails her letter, or attempts to do so.

Georgia's tour group consists of a diverse yet somewhat unruly group of loudmouthed Americans (Rachel Dratch and Harland Williams), beer drinking Australians with their odd accents (Simon Gleeson and Natalie O'Donnell), the stuffy Brits (Ian Ogilvy and Caroline Goodall) and their sullen teenage daughter (Sophie Stuckey), a couple of divorced and looking-for-action Senoritas (Maria Botto and Maria Adanez), a kleptomaniac senior citizen and her mute husband (Sheila Bernette and Ralph Nossek), a young adult looking for action (Jareb Dauplaise) and a workaholic, cell phone addicted IHOP sales rep (played by Brian Palermo).

The group member who stood out amongst the crowd was Irv (played by Richard Dreyfuss), an elderly man who loved to crack a joke or pull a gag for every occasion, especially when Georgia's lectures begin to pull the group down. But after learning Irv just lost his wife, the two characters learn more about each other and let their guards down. Dreyfuss' interaction with Vardalos throughout the film, brought out a human touch to the film. Irv represented a character that audiences could easily relate to, and was made relatable to anyone on many levels.

Each of the group members bring their own unique personalities to the film. While Georgia is battling Irv over her uptight behavior, her kind hearted nature comes across in the film, whether it is getting the rash behavior of the Americans over souvenirs, making the young British girl happy while her parents argued, or simply stealing the air conditioner from the other group's bus.

The film's heart is found with the interaction between Georgia and Poupi, as the two characters gradually discover their mutual attraction for one another. This part of the film is also interwoven as the tour group encourages her towards Poupi, as the romance gradually builds up.

This film is not the over hyped, box office breaking movie of the summer. Instead this film is for audiences that miss stories with human emotions and cinematography that captures real things left in this world. My Life In Ruins is something that will be touching audiences for a long while.