Driving Aphrodite

The critics are fair, the posibilities to make a better film , using admirable actors, are many. but..., against not the best script, cliches, thin stories, flat characters, it is a nice film. and that is, in fact, the most important thing. because it is the film of Nia Vardalos, saving many scenes, it is occasion for Richard Dreyfuss to give a lovely character and , for viewer, it is a modest opportunity to meet a sketch of Greece, a sort of love story and the effort of team to do reasonable film about vacation and its people. and, maybe, it is enough. for a nice result who, being, at the first sigh only an improvisation, could be defined as version of "My Big Greek Wedding".

Early voters are being a little to hard on this feel-good romantic comedy/Greek travel infomercial. Nia Vardolos is a Greek-American expatriate in Greece, overqualified and unhappy with her temporary job as a tour guide. Nia rolls her pretty eyes at the prospect of entertaining a tacky crew of caricatured tourists, which include Richard Dreyfuss as a jokester and Rachel Dratch as an absurd American. Alexis Georgoulis is their hairy driver.

The jokes are pretty hit and miss, with mostly hits after the bus gets rolling a bit. This is a warm, accessible, and engaging film, that will satisfy fans of MBFGW who do not burden the film with too much in the way of expectation.

My Life in Ruins is corny, clichéd, predictable and a totally fun way to spend an afternoon. Every now then a movie will come along and change your life. This is not one of those movies. It is not highly original or well acted but it is a funny and feel good film. My Life in Ruins is about tour guide Georige (Nia Vardalos) who is bored with her job, disappointed with life and generally just too uptight. Thanks to a tour passenger Irv (Richard Deyfuss) who takes on a guardian angel role and a sexy "ugly swan" bus driver (Alexis Georgoulis), Georgie begins to look at life on a whole new level. Some of this movie is a little one dimensional. The Australian tourist whose singular role in the movie is to prove no one can understand us and that we like drinking way too much were a little corny. However, none of this stops the movie from being funny, fun and really entertaining. Vardolos continues to be a delight on screen and her co-star Alexis Georgoulis is really really hot. My advice is see this film, take along some high fat snacks and don't feel guilty about either. After all, as the film preaches life is too short to do anything else.

Sorry, Nia. I'm a fan....but this movie falls pretty flat. The comedy writing is contrived and predictable. There were some laugh out loud moments. But they were too few and far between. Most of the characters are cardboard cut-outs. They are unbelievable and obnoxious. And the story? Well, we've seen it a million times before. Richard Dreyfuss is the HIGHLIGHT of this film. It is in scenes with Nia and Dreyfuss that the movie shines. The scene at the beach was so brief but so powerful...Dreyfuss makes the most of those brief moments. The scenery,however,is fantastic! To see the ruins of Greece on the big screen...what a treat. Overall, I felt this movie was trying way too hard to be funny....much like the tour guide in the movie. Wait for it to come out on video.

Has anyone seen the 1969 movie "If this is Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium?". " My life in Ruins"-what an excellent if corny title- is much the same theme. The film could have been serialised in Mad magazine. No, it is not a great movie but good light entertainment not to be taken seriously. I dwell in Greece and like Nia I am a Greek Canadian, we both speak Greek fluently enough but with a bad accent. I have never taken a bus tour in Greece but have Canadian friends who did and have told me of similar experiences as those shown in the movie. My one and only experience as a tourist on a bus full of Torontonians and Montrealers was in Mexcio in 1977 and it was pretty much the same. A crazy and life threatening driver called Pedro, a funny guide Pepe who realised we all wanted more humour than education about the Mexican ruins etc "Thees was where the thee pipi room was. You know, when the Aztecs they wanna make pipi". My Life in Ruins spares nobody be they Greek, American, Canadian, Spanish, British or Australian. I think it would be hard to appreciate the comedy for anyone who has never visited Greece or ever been part of a tourist bus group and laugh as much as I did. That's the thing about comedies, probably the most difficult of all movie genres; one has to relate to the situation and to the characters. I would put My Life in Ruins on a par with My Big Fat Greek Wedding (though not the later TV show which was a disaster).