Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

My Life in Ruins Blu-ray Movie Review

Or, My Big Fat Greek Bus Tour.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater October 7, 2009

What do you get when you cross two obnoxious American tourists, a gaggle of polite Canadians, a fatty Floridian, a pair of Spanish divorcees, a couple of drunk Aussies, an elderly kleptomaniac, a crotchety widower, a family of aristocratic Brits, a syrup-loving IHOP franchise rep, and Nia Vardalos, star of 2002’s sleeper indie hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding? I wish I had a satisfyingly hilarious punch line for you, but My Life in Ruins is only a joke in the pejorative sense. What you get, then, is a menagerie of unfunny stereotypes traipsing through a been-done-to-death narrative about a woman trying to find her lost passion, her mojo, joie de vivre, or kefi, as it’s known in Greece.

Transforming a $5,000,000 budget into a whopping $360,000,000 gross intake worldwide, My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a big fat box-office triumph for independent filmmaking, sparking an interest in “ethnic” stories, and putting then-buxom star Nia Vardalos in the national spotlight. Since then, though, Vardalos has been conspicuously absent, aside from her short-lived sit-com, My Big Fat Greek Life. Hoping that the lightning of her Mediterranean heritage would strike twice, she purchased the script for My Life in Ruins from The Simpsons scribe and The Critic creator Mike Reiss (who notes in his commentary that he was paid a cool .5 million). Unfortunately, for her and us, this would-be follow up to Greek Wedding is a trite rom-com that fails to recapture the magic, story-wise and financially, not quite recouping the $17,000,000 bankroll needed to finance the picture.

No, it’s not a sequel, but with the addition of an explanatory prologue, it could have easily been transformed into one. Instead, Vardalos plays Georgia here, a history professor who, after being laid off from her post at Athens University, takes a gig giving bus tours to the obnoxious, aforementioned stock characters. Georgia is sad, stuck, unsatisfied with her life, and less than thrilled to be giving yet another tour to bored tourists who care more about the Hard Rock Café than the Temple of Hephaestus. And I feel for her. It’s bad enough that the tourists are annoying, one-note characters, but most of them are being played annoyingly by actors who blunder through the broadest, most inane comedic choices. Rachel Dratch and Harland Williams are cast as the overly patriotic American couple, and every time they were relieved to find someone who “speaks American” or failed to grasp how to haggle with street vendors, I couldn’t even summon the ire to cringe. The jokes are too stale to be anything more than eye-rolling. The other cast members crumble under similarly clichéd performances, and though I understand that the film can’t devote the proper time to fully characterize the 15 or so odd bit players, the decision to make them super-concentrated stereotypes simply doesn’t work.

There are minor exceptions. Richard Dreyfuss is the film’s highlight as Irv Gordon, a widower and cantankerous funnyman who initially gives Georgia guff for being stuck-up. When the two start seeing eye to eye, they’re each able to help the other break through a psychological barrier. Georgia grants Irv a place of honor as the tour bus’s very own Greek god, helping him to get over his wife’s death in the process, and Irv gives Georgia the chutzpah to pursue the hirsute driver of the bus, Mr. Pokopis “Poupi” Kakas (Alex Georgoulis). I only wish I were kidding. Sporting a glorious Grizzly Adams beard, “Poupi” looks like a Grecian Neanderthal, and he seems at first to have the communicative skills to match. Predictably, under the out-of-control facial hair lies a muscle-bound Adonis, and when he shaves clean and expresses his poeticized take on bus driving to Georgia, she melts quicker than the ice cream the tourists demand at every stop on the itinerary.

Aside from a misguided rivalry with a sleazy fellow tour guide, there’s little in the way of dramatic conflict. The arc of the film can be summed up thusly: Georgia hates her job and the tourists hate her. Everyone slowly loosens up. Georgia gets shtupped by the driver, drops the historical shtick, and gives everyone a relaxing day at the seaside. Everyone is happy. The film’s message seems to be “screw history, let’s go to the beach,” or perhaps “get laid and feel better about your life.” Pointless, bland, and emotionally hollow, My Life in Ruins is, at best, an innocuous rom- com that will elicit a few minor chuckles over its 95-minute run time. Why do people watch this stuff? Resisting…the urge…to pun…oh, I give up. It’s all Greek to me.

My Life in Ruins Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For a fairly low-budget production, My Life in Ruins is visually pleasing on Blu-ray, with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that proves vivid and crisp. Appropriately for such a Greece-centric film, the color palette is awash in bold blues, like Georgia's blazer and the azure expanse of the Aegean Sea. In general, colors are satisfyingly saturated, and flesh tones are—on the Greek characters anyway—a natural, sun-soaked bronze. Black levels are nicely weighted, showing no signs of crush, and while contrast is slightly overheated—pleasingly so in most scenes—there a few shots that seems overexposed and much too bright. Clarity is no concern here, as the film exhibits an all-around sense of sharpness that allows individual strands of Georgia's hair to be readily discernable and background objects to be clear and resolved. I did notice the slight shimmer of aliasing during one aerial shot of an amphitheater, but other than that, the transfer seems free of any overt technical defects. The print itself is very clean, and no one will take issue with the thin layer of grain that adds some warmth and texture to the image.

My Life in Ruins Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Like most romantic comedies, My Life in Ruins offers little excitement in the audio department, arriving on Blu-ray with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that does what it needs to do without any added sonic bells and whistles. As much as I sometimes wished it weren't so, the dippy dialogue is 100% clean, clear, and intelligible, leaving no questions about why particular jokes fail. Surround speaker use is limited to bleeding score and environmental ambience —you'll hear the wind rushing through ancient columns, water lapping in a marina, traffic sounds, and party chatter—but you'd have to actively listen to make most of it out. Thankfully, there's a decent spread in the front channels, which separate and distinguish the individual elements of David Mullen's score. As you might expect, there's no real subwoofer engagement, but the track's dynamic range has enough breadth to encompass what little audio diversity the film musters. There's nothing overly impressive here, but this track does serve the film's intentions well.

My Life in Ruins Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Commentary Tracks
The disc includes three separate commentary tracks—one each from Nia Vardalos, director Donald Petrie, and writer Mike Reiss—but none of them are interesting enough on their own, with the exception of Mike Reiss, who has a ton of great anecdotes about his personal experiences on bus tours. Yet even Reiss calls it quits slightly over an hour into his track, having run out of things to say about the film and resorting to stories about The Simpsons. Vardalos' track is spotty throughout, and while Petrie offers up loads of technical details about set design and scene construction, there are few people who would actually care about that kind of discussion regarding a movie like this. It would have been much better if all three participants had shared a single track.

Everybody Loves Poupi (SD, 3:30)
"This is what you can do in the editing room when you have way too much time on your hands," says the director. What follows is a series scenes re-edited to make it look like everyone is checking out Poupi.

Deleted and Alternate Scenes (SD, 12:38)
There are eight deleted scenes here, including a downer of an alternate ending. All the scenes are available with optional commentary by the director.

Bride Wars Trailer (1080p, 2:25)

My Life in Ruins Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Greeks and Greece-o-philes may get a kick out of seeing their favorite country back on the silver screen, but My Life in Ruins is ultimately as lifeless and empty as the ancient stone monuments it features. Despite a decent Blu-ray presentation, I'll give you a word of traveler's advice—skip the bus tour.