My Life In Ruins

Review by Sean Lynch

You have to love actors, who are at a crossroads in their career,  that just lob up film titles that are such easy pun targets for critics.

It doesn't help either the fact that My Life In Ruins is a genuinely terrible movie.

The flick follows Georgia (Nia Vardalos) who has lost her "kefi" (those wacky Greek's word for "mojo").

Discouraged by her lack of direction in life, she works as a travel guide, leading a rag-tag group of tourists as she tries to show them the beauty of her native Greece while waiting to land her dream job.

Opening their eyes to an exotic foreign land, she, too, begins to see things in new ways - finding her "kefi" and possibly love in the process.

Clearly heading back to the well after the failure of her projects post My Big Fat Greek Wedding (which included the TV series My Big Fat Greek Life and Connie and Carla) My Life In Ruins is a cinematic disaster on countless levels.

Despite a cheesy but workable script, and the backing of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson (who made a mint from producing Greek Wedding), My Life In Ruins suffers, more than anything, from "Direct To VHS" syndrome.

Plain and simple, My Life In Ruins looks cheap. Very, very cheap.

No matter how good a script (which this isn't), or how impressive a cast (which this has... I'm thinking Richard Dreyfuss owed Rita Wilson a BIG favour, plus it's always great to see UK's Alistair McGowan and SNL's Rachel Dratch onscreen) - comedies just don't work unless they look one of two ways :

Super Slick (EG: The Hangover) or Super Gritty (EG: Police Academy).

What is served up with Ruins feels like a well shot Australian TV series - or, at best, one of those pesky cable American Pie sequels. And for those who have no sense of taste... that isn't a good thing.

"Clean and OK" just feels weird when shown on the big screen.

There are times where the film does find it's feet (a kleptomaniac grandmother is one of the few highlights), but all My Life In Ruins' good work is quickly undone by forced "comedy", unnatural sentimentality and the type of "wacky" electronic-keyboard heavy musical score that was so common in the latter installments of the Revenge Of The Nerds franchise.

Admittedly, Nia Vardalos does ground the film and (depending on what angle she is shot from... ) she is impressively easy on the eye considering her age. But it just isn't enough to warrant someone wasting their time and money on heading out to the cinema.

Mums and Grandparents may be able to look past it's flaws and chuckle, but one would hope we have progressed somewhat as a society that most will have the good sense to avoid it.

"Oh, I get it, she's Greek and said something about a souvalaki... brilliant! Like a female Nick Gianopolous I tells ya! Bring on the sequel..."

1 out of 5

My Life In Ruins
Australian release: 16th July, 2009
Official Site: My Life In Ruins
Cast: Nia Vardalos, Richard Dreyfuss, Rachel Dratch
Director: Donald Petrie