My Life in Ruins
In the film My Life in Ruins, if you watch Georgia, played by Nila Vardolas you will soon realize that throughout the film she wore a smile with her gleaming teeth sparkling with hardly any expression as if she were endorsing teeth makeover advertisement.
Her acting was uncomfortable resemblance of posing for a portrait. Still she is a central character of the film and definitely extremely unconvincing and superficial making the romantic comedy a hollow flick.
Georgia is an American tour guide who is in a fight with Nico because she believes that Georgia Nico is always lucky to get a bus assigned that is filled with well-behaved tourists. She is irritable about the fact that her tourists always seem moronic consisting of ancient Britons, Spanish divorcees, loud Yankees and those boozing Aussies.
Besides these broad characters, there was Richard Dreyfuss who played as Irv who brings into life the character with some jokes. But my belief is that the jokes could have been funnier for his age. He should have browsed some more delightful funnier websites and got more meaningful funny jokes.
However, the question that tickles my senses in this film is what happened to Nila Vardolas. This is because the same actor in the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a movie star who was lovable, earthy, jovial and plumper than she is now. In this film she looked slimmer and much younger. But her acting leaves so much doubt and seemed unimpressive to the core.
The driver of the bus is Poupi, a role played by Alexis Georgoulis who sported a beard. But after he shaves it off, he looked extremely handsome with long locks and typical of a character that dates older woman. The romance between them Poupi and Georgia is embarrassing. Georgia did really find love in the bus driver and her aimless and lifeless life finds the anchor. Georgia then tries to explore the foreign land with another pair of eyes.
The essence of the film is about how Georgia’s perception to life changes as she starts loving Poupi, and how she learns chancing from one of her client Irv, played by Richard Dreyfus. Georgia changes from a boring guide into something lovely that Greece is offering. She will be endeared by one and all in the group.
The scriptwriter seemed quite lousy with the movie not tuning up very well. Nothing seemed to be very likeable in My Life in Ruins, it wallows through mediocrity and makes us sitting and watching hard and challenging, yet we can’t simply tag it as bad
On the positive side, this film reflects breathtaking location in and around Greece and the movie for Vardolas is some thing like a Big Fat Greek Holidaying! (On a serious note though, aren’t there places more photogenic than Greece?)
The movie Life in Ruins is a kind of mediocre film with hackneyed plot and stereotype dialogue. There is nothing wrong in the comedy of the film as long as you can enjoy some light jokes in between, but the film keeps us surprising that there are still filmmakers who will be willing to churn out dispirited material like My Life in Ruins off and on. The film is rated PG13 for its profanity and sexual situations exposed.
No ruining your 100-minute time but My Life in Ruins is still a mediocre entertainer.
Film: My Life in Ruins
Cast: Nia Vardolas as Georgia, Richard dreyfuss as Irv, Alexis Georgoulis as Poupi, Rachel Dratch as Kim
Directed by: Donald Petrie
Written by: Mike Reiss
Run Time: 1 hour 38 minutes
Rating: 1.5/5
Posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 2:50 pm