Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and much too harshly, for mild sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.11.09
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Back in the day — 1969, to be precise — Suzanne Pleshette and Ian McShane starred in If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, a routine albeit reasonably charming saga involving Americans being hauled about on a brisk tour of Europe.
This film could be considered a template for an extremely narrow subset of romantic comedies that focus on a mishmash of folks getting dragged into some activity more or less against their wills, and forced to enjoy the experience despite themselves. Notwithstanding complaints, short tempers, lousy hotel accommodations and other low-key problems, everybody winds up being best friends forever when the curtain finally falls.
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| Georgia (Nia Vaardalos) spends the first half of My Life in Ruins trying to persuade the members of her hot and tired tour group to embrace her often stuffy lectures about Greece's magnificent ruins. It could be argued that Varsalos and the filmmakers spend just as much time trying to get us to like their movie ... with roughly the same degree of success. |
In their own way, such films are as rigorously formulaic as the disaster flicks of the 1970s, in the sense that you could tabulate the two-dimensional stereotypes in your sleep. Tension is minimal, and threats generally are limited to an "unexpected" health crisis that strikes one of the most beloved characters who has come along for the ride.
And, needless to say, the female lead — invariably at a crossroads in her life — Finds Love After All.
Call it movie comfort food.
All that said, some viewers will be delighted to discover that My Life in Ruins hasn't changed the equation a jot in 40 years. All the elements are in place, starting with the frazzled tour guide who can't get her life together; the only nod to the 21st century is the fact that the primarily American tourists of If It's Tuesday have been transformed into a more politically sensitive — although still as stereotyped — gaggle of folks from all over the world.
Honestly, it feels as if scripter Mike Reiss watched If It's Tuesday half a dozen times, modified the recipe only enough to satisfy plagiarism watchdogs, and hoped for the best.
The result will feel awfully familiar to those who regularly watch movies, and that's a problem. I also could apply the ultimate insult, and suggest that My Life in Ruins looks, sounds and plays like a made-for-TV movie with delusions of grandeur. That's a bit harsh, but it accurately describes director Donald Petrie's by-the-numbers approach to a script he seems to have found rather lackluster.
In short, My Life in Ruins feels like a job: a chore to be undertaken with great reluctance by cast and crew, much like the tour being led by this story's Georgia (Nia Vardalos).
Vardalos' presence in this film also is disappointing, in the sense that My Life in Ruins is such a letdown after the star's much greater success with the vibrant My Big Fat Greek Wedding
. A lesson can be learned here: Greek Wedding was far from original itself, but Vardalos and all involved injected so much life and spirit that they made a clichéed story fresh all over again. No doubt the same could have been done with My Life in Ruins, but nobody seems to be trying.
