A midlin' tourBy John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"
"A good traveller is something at the latter end of a
dinner; but one that lies three thirds and uses a
known truth to pass a thousand nothings with, should
be once heard and thrice beaten." Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well
Greece is much better than it appears in My Life in Ruins, an uneven romantic comedy starring Nia Vardalos of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. She is Georgia the tour guide, who has lost her "kefi" or mojo, and may discover it again on this tour. I'll spoil it for you: She finds it in love.
Although the title may be one of the wittiest ever, we have to endure vapid dialogue with stock characters right out of a primer for mediocre romcoms. Even her love interest, Poupi (Alexis Georguolis) is a clich?, a swarthy Greek who begins as a disheveled bus driver and cleans up very nicely, thank you, as Georgia matures. (Yes, Poupi's the name, an early indication of the low comedy level.)
Mature she does by loosening up to the wise advice of Richard Dreyfuss's oracle-like musings, he coming off of three years after his beloved wife's death. Oh, my, it's the heartache that provides the bromides for a middle-aged woman's coming out.
But moments of cute occasionally mutate into poignant drama, especially when Dreyfus and Vardalos interact. Otherwise it's one clich? after another, from Zorba the Greek to Never on Sunday and in between the most derivative tourists ever assembled, from rude Americans to drunken Aussies.
Having just returned from a camera-ready adventure in Greece, I am disappointed that the ruins look washed out and the whites and blues, mostly found on islands like Santorini, appear only briefly. But Pedro Almodovar's favorite cinematographer, Jos? Luis Alcaine, gets it right with shots of Vardalos, who looks vibrant and beautiful all the time, even when she's splattered with gelato and desperate for love.
If you want a midlin' tour of Greece and a forced romantic comedy from the comfort of your Cineplex, you can't go too wrong on a summer night to see this film.
John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time and Cinema Classics shows, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com