| Perfectly pleasant My Big Fat Greek Wedding star Nia Vardalos serves up another inoffensive cultural rom-com with My Life in Ruins
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| MY LIFE IN RUINS
Opens Friday
Winnipeg-born writer/ actress Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) offers up another instalment of her ongoing spotlight on Greek culture with My Life in Ruins, a moderately amusing rom-com with Vardalos starring as Georgia - a harried tour guide in Greece who can't catch a break as she idly waits for a better job offer.
Forced to contend with an unruly group, Georgia flusters her way through the ancient locales, mistakenly thinking her customers are more interested in history than overpriced souvenirs. Her competition is swarthy Nico (Alistair McGowan), a bribing glad-hander who works at the same company. He ensures his bus is filled with a more manageable selection of tourists (which leads to the in-joke: of course, they're Canadians).
The members of Georgia's cadre include widowed jokester Irv (Richard Dreyfuss), an immature American couple (Harland Williams and Rachel Dratch), priggish Mrs. Tullen (Caroline Goodall), her husband (Ian Ogilvy) and their teenage daughter. The feral-bearded Poupi (Alexis Georgoulis) is the tour-bus driver and, as he cleans himself up throughout the course of the picture, he emerges as the sensible love interest for the longtime single Georgia.
Re-working a screenplay from Simpsons staffer Mike Reiss, but not taking credit for it, is Vardalos. She jam-packs it with the same inoffensive, family-friendly humour found in her smash success, Greek Wedding.
Director Donald Petrie (Grumpy Old Men, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) directs with an even-handed touch. His approach is genial and enticing, with every ruin popping out as if a picture postcard. It's as pleasantly craftsman-like as the writing and acting.
Dreyfuss has a couple of fresh lines that may remind you of how good he can be. Still, he is a rote elderly figure who spouts pearls of wisdom in the guise of filthy tidbits that essentially boil down to telling Georgia she needs to get laid.
In this film, Vardalos again uses frustration as her comic source; here, her frustration is born of a life in stasis.
As she and her tour group grow together, the shortsighted tourists have their value systems changed, not by the ruins themselves, but by Georgia. Or maybe by something more magical.
— Aaron Graham |
Uptown
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