Tagline: Finally going to Greece.
Unlucky at both love and finding her dream job in the U.S., Greek-American history professor Georgia has come to Athens to regain her mojo—or kefi, as the Greeks call it. During an extended visit to a country whose locals can be counted on to commemorate failure and success with the same flamboyant spirit, Georgia signs up to be a professional tour guide, hoping she will find an eager audience for her encyclopedic knowledge of Ancient Greece among Athens’ many visitors.
Instead, the travelers who regularly fill Georgia’s tour bus are far more interested in lounging at Greece’s famous beaches than its celebrated UNESCO heritage sites. Her insistence that the vacationers listen to her scholarly lectures on the glory of the ancient world has made her the least popular guide in the history of Pangloss Tours. When she refuses to change her program to suit her customers, Georgia’s acerbic boss (Bernice Stegers) cuts a deal with another tour guide, the unctuous Nico (Alistair McGowan), to make her quit.
Georgia’s latest tour group is a motley crew – loudmouthed Americans in their baseball caps and sneakers (Rachel Dratch and Harland Williams), Australians who can’t put down the beer (Simon Gleeson and Natalie O’Donnell), the stuffy Brits (Ian Ogilvy and Caroline Goodall) and their sullen teenage daughter (Sophie Stuckey), a couple of recently divorced and hot-to-trot Spanish señoritas (María Botto and María Ádanez), a kleptomaniac senior citizen and her mute husband (Sheila Bernette and Ralph Nossek) and a workaholic, text-message addicted IHOP sales rep (Brian Palermo)
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And then there’s Irv (Richard Dreyfuss), ‘Mr. Funny’ as Georgia would say. Irv has a quip, a joke or a gag for every occasion, each one cornier than the last, and he trots them out whenever the group’s interest in Georgia’s lectures begins to wane—which is quite often. At every stop, her charges rush off in search of souvenirs and ice cream instead of taking in the wonders right in front of them.
To make matters worse, Georgia has been assigned the most dilapidated tour bus in Europe, the crummiest hotels Greece has to offer and Pangloss’ scariest, hairiest and seemingly mute bus driver, Procopi “Poupi” Kakas (Alexis Georgoulis). Meanwhile, Nico, who is following the same itinerary, unleashes a series of mean-spirited pranks that turn Georgia’s group against her. With everything going wrong, a desperate Georgia begins to think about abandoning the tour—and her life in Greece.
But before she reaches the breaking point, a special someone on the bus takes Georgia on a personal detour that teaches her to look for beauty in people, not knowledge, and transforms the overeducated American tour guide into a full-fledged Greek goddess who enchants her reluctant group with a hot-blooded perspective on her ancestral homeland.
About the Production
When Nia Vardalos read Mike Reiss’ script for MY LIFE IN RUINS, she was instantly captivated. It wasn’t simply the chance to shoot a film in Greece, although that was certainly a plus for the Greek-American actress, Vardalos fell hard for the character of Georgia.
“What I added to the character was that she was so controlling and she had to learn to let go. I’ve always been told work hard and anything you want can be achieved. That actually turns out not to be that true, though. Sometimes you just have to let go and laugh—or dance!”
Although her character has what many would consider a dream job, Vardalos observes, “She’s not letting the magic of it enter her soul because she chooses to bring the disappointment in her life with her. She has to change her outlook. And it’s not just Georgia; it happens to all the characters.”
Vardalos, who received an Academy Award nomination for her first screenplay, MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, put her unique comic spin on Georgia. “The idea is that when you take yourself out of your comfort zone, life is magical,” says Vardalos. Donald Petrie, who has directed some of the most successful romantic comedies of the past two decades, was approached to take the reins of the project. “If a script makes me laugh out loud when I’m reading it, that’s a movie I want to make,” he says. “This made me laugh out loud. We spent some time refining the arc of the character, so that Georgia’s evolution over one five-day experience is really clear.”
In Petrie’s eyes, Georgia has lost her passion for her work because she sees the tourists she deals with as stereotypes, not individuals. “Her ‘tour group from hell’ only seems that way because she’s not doing her job the way she should be doing it,” he says. “She thinks everyone should have the same burning desire for the history of Greece that she does, and when they don’t meet her expectations, she dismisses them. Over the course of the film, the tour group helps her find her kefi again by helping her recognize that it is okay to be different and that these are living, breathing, wonderful people.”
Petrie says he found a real collaborator in his leading lady. “Nia and I often finished each other’s sentences,” he says. “We were very much on the same page, constantly coming up with ideas, and going back and forth.”
Petrie had never been to Greece, much less shot a film there. “When the producers asked me if I could make this film on this budget in Greece, I honestly had no clue,” he admits. “If you asked me if I could make this picture in New York, I could say yes or no. I know what costs are in New York or Canada or even Louisiana. I didn’t have a clue about Greece. Were there crews in Greece? What’s the availability of personnel? How far apart are these locations?
Continue Reading and View the Theatrical Trailer
My Life in Ruins (2009)
Directed by: Donald Petrie
Starring: Nia Vardalos, Richard Dreyfuss, Harland Williams, Rachel Dratch, Caroline Goodall, Ian Ogilvy, Sophie Stuckey, María Botto, María Adánez, Brian Palermo, Natalie O’Donnell
Screenplay by: Mike Reiss
Production Design by: David Chapman
Cinematography by: José Luis Alcaine
Film Editing by: Patrick J. Don Vito
Costume Design by: Lala Huete, Lena Mossum
Set Decoration by: Sonia Aranzabal, Christine Vlachos
Art Direction by: Jonathan McKinstry
Music by: David Newman
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content.
Distributed by: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release Date: June 5, 2009
Visits: 85
