My Life in Ruins
Encyclopedia
My Life in Ruins is a 2009
2009 in film
The year 2009 saw the release of many films. Seven made the top 50 list of highest-grossing films, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that as of this year, their Best Picture category would consist of ten nominees, rather than five .- Highest-grossing films :Please note...

 romantic comedy film
Romantic comedy film
Romantic comedy films are films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount most obstacles. One dictionary definition is "a funny movie, play, or television program about a love story that ends happily"...

 set amongst the ruins of ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

, starring Nia Vardalos
Nia Vardalos
Antonia Eugenia "Nia" Vardalos is a Canadian-American actress, screenwriter, director, singer and producer. Her most notable work is the 2002 Academy Award–nominated film My Big Fat Greek Wedding.-Personal life:...

, Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About...

, Alexis Georgoulis
Alexis Georgoulis
Alexis Georgoulis is a Greek actor and director who became particularly popular in Greece after his participation in the 2001 Greek Television Series "You Are My Mate"...

, Rachel Dratch
Rachel Dratch
Rachel Susan Dratch is an American comic actress best known for her roles as a cast member of Saturday Night Live from 1999 to 2006.-Early life:...

, Harland Williams
Harland Williams
Harland Williams is a Canadian actor, comedian, author, artist, musician and radio personality.-Personal life:Harland Reesor Williams was born on November 14, 1962, in Toronto, Ontario, to Lorraine , a social worker, and John Reesor Williams, who worked as a member of the Ontario Provincial...

 and British comedy actor and impressionist Alistair McGowan
Alistair McGowan
Alistair McGowan is a British impressionist, stand-up comic, actor, singer and writer best known to British audiences for The Big Impression , which was, for four years, one of BBC1's top-rating comedy programmes - winning numerous awards, including a BAFTA in 2003...

. The film is about a tour guide whose life takes a personal detour, while her group gets entangled in comic situations among the ruins, with a series of unexpected stops along the way. The film was released on June 5, 2009 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and May 7, 2009 in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

.

Plot

Georgia (Nia Vardalos
Nia Vardalos
Antonia Eugenia "Nia" Vardalos is a Canadian-American actress, screenwriter, director, singer and producer. Her most notable work is the 2002 Academy Award–nominated film My Big Fat Greek Wedding.-Personal life:...

) is a Greek American
Greek American
Greek Americans are Americans of Greek descent also described as Hellenic descent. According to the 2007 U.S. Census Bureau estimation, there were 1,380,088 people of Greek ancestry in the United States, while the State Department mentions that around 3,000,000 Americans claim to be of Greek descent...

 tour guide who is leading a tour around Greece with an assorted group of misfit tourists who would rather buy a T-shirt than learn about history and culture. In a clash of personalities and cultures, everything seems to go wrong, until one day when an older traveler named Irv Gordon (Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About...

), shows her how to have fun, and to take a good look at the last person she would ever expect to find love with, her Greek bus driver (Alexis Georgoulis
Alexis Georgoulis
Alexis Georgoulis is a Greek actor and director who became particularly popular in Greece after his participation in the 2001 Greek Television Series "You Are My Mate"...

).

Cast

  • Nia Vardalos
    Nia Vardalos
    Antonia Eugenia "Nia" Vardalos is a Canadian-American actress, screenwriter, director, singer and producer. Her most notable work is the 2002 Academy Award–nominated film My Big Fat Greek Wedding.-Personal life:...

     as Georgia Ianakopolis
  • Richard Dreyfuss
    Richard Dreyfuss
    Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About...

     as Irv Gideon
  • Alexis Georgoulis
    Alexis Georgoulis
    Alexis Georgoulis is a Greek actor and director who became particularly popular in Greece after his participation in the 2001 Greek Television Series "You Are My Mate"...

     as Prokopi Kakas
  • Rachel Dratch
    Rachel Dratch
    Rachel Susan Dratch is an American comic actress best known for her roles as a cast member of Saturday Night Live from 1999 to 2006.-Early life:...

     as Kim Sawchuck
  • Harland Williams
    Harland Williams
    Harland Williams is a Canadian actor, comedian, author, artist, musician and radio personality.-Personal life:Harland Reesor Williams was born on November 14, 1962, in Toronto, Ontario, to Lorraine , a social worker, and John Reesor Williams, who worked as a member of the Ontario Provincial...

     as Big Al Sawchuck
  • Caroline Goodall
    Caroline Goodall
    Caroline Cruice Goodall is a British actress and screenwriter.-Biography:Goodall was born in London, England to a journalist mother and a publisher father...

     as Dr. Elizabeth Tullen
  • Ian Ogilvy
    Ian Ogilvy
    Ian Raymond Ogilvy is an English film and television actor.-Early life:He was born in Woking, Surrey, England, the son of advertising executive Francis Ogilvy and actress Aileen Raymond .He was educated at Sunningdale School, Eton College and at the Royal Academy of...

     as Mr. Stewart Tullen
  • Alistair McGowan
    Alistair McGowan
    Alistair McGowan is a British impressionist, stand-up comic, actor, singer and writer best known to British audiences for The Big Impression , which was, for four years, one of BBC1's top-rating comedy programmes - winning numerous awards, including a BAFTA in 2003...

     as Nico
  • Jareb Dauplaise
    Jareb Dauplaise
    Jareb Dauplaise is an American actor. He played Wayne in The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. He has also appeared in a commercial for the restaurant El Pollo Loco...

     as Gator
  • María Botto as Lala, Spanish divorcée
  • María Adánez
    María Adánez
    María Adánez Almenara is a Spanish actress, director, writer and producer.-Life and career:Adánez most popular work includes Pepa y Pepe, Farmacia de guardia, and Aquí no hay quien viva...

     as Lena, Spanish divorcée
  • Nacho Perez as Doudi Kakas, Prokopi Kakas' nephew
  • Sophie Stuckey
    Sophie Stuckey
    Sophie Stuckey is an English actress. She plays the lead role of Summer in Summer in Transylvania.Stuckey, who was born in Camden, also played Dora Southerly in Midsomer Murders, and is set to play Stella Kipps in the 2012 remake of The Woman in Black...

     as Caitlin Tullen
  • Brian Palermo
    Brian Palermo
    Brian Palermo is an American character actor and comedian. He has appeared in a number of television shows, commercials and movies. He is also a writer whose credits include "Warner Brothers' Histeria!", "Disney's Dave The Barbarian" and "Disney's The Weekenders."His film credits include The...

     as Marc Mallard

Development

The script is originally by Mike Reiss
Mike Reiss
Michael "Mike" Reiss is an American television comedy writer. He served as a show-runner, writer and producer for the animated series The Simpsons and co-created the animated series The Critic...

 (The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...

, The Simpsons Movie
The Simpsons Movie
The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 American animated comedy film based on the animated television series The Simpsons. The film was directed by David Silverman, and stars the regular television cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Tress...

), based on his travel experiences, but it was later re-written by Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a 2002 Canadian and American romantic comedy film written by and starring Nia Vardalos and directed by Joel Zwick. The film is centered on Fotoula "Toula" Portokalos , a middle class Greek American woman who falls in love with a non-Greek upper middle class "White...

) after she became involved. The film was co-produced by Gary Goetzman
Gary Goetzman
Gary M. Goetzman is an American film and television producer, and is perhaps best known as co-founder of Playtone with Tom Hanks. Born in Los Angeles, Goetzman began his career as a child actor. In 1984, director Jonathan Demme tapped Goetzman to co-produce the Talking Heads concert film Stop...

 and Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...

, and is directed by Donald Petrie
Donald Petrie
Donald Mark Petrie is an American film director.Petrie was born in New York City, New York, the son of Dorothea , a television producer, actor, and novelist, and Daniel Petrie, a director. Petrie has acted and guest-starred on television programs. His first directorial job was on the set of The...

. Vardalos has stated that the film was a lifelong dream of hers for she had always wanted to do a film in her family's ancestral homeland.

Filming

The film is set on location in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 and Alicante
Alicante
Alicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...

, in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, including Guadalest and Javea. This was the first time that an American film studio was allowed to film on location at the Acropolis
Acropolis of Athens
The Acropolis of Athens or Citadel of Athens is the best known acropolis in the world. Although there are many other acropoleis in Greece, the significance of the Acropolis of Athens is such that it is commonly known as The Acropolis without qualification...

; the Greek government gave the studio its approval after Vardalos sought permission to film several scenes there. Other Greek filming locations include Olympia
Olympia, Greece
Olympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. Both games were held every Olympiad , the Olympic Games dating back possibly further than 776 BC...

, Delphi
Delphi
Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...

, and Epidaurus
Epidaurus
Epidaurus was a small city in ancient Greece, at the Saronic Gulf. Two modern towns bear the name Epidavros : Palaia Epidavros and Nea Epidavros. Since 2010 they belong to the new municipality of Epidavros, part of the peripheral unit of Argolis...

.

Release

The official US trailer by Fox Searchlight Pictures was released on January 7, 2009. The film premiered on June 5, 2009, and took in $3.2 million, placing it ninth of ten for American box office income in its three-day opening weekend. After 17 days of its release, My Life In Ruins took in gross sales of $8,500,270 in the United States. In Greece, the film grossed $1,549,303 1st in its three-day opening weekend, placing it first in sales for the weekend. After a month, sales stood at $1,871,896 placing it 8th in the yearly Greek box office. Canadian ticket sales for My Life In Ruins came in at $777,290.

The film was released simultaneously on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 and Blu-ray on October 6, 2009, in the United States. As of April 12, 2010 the domestic DVD sales for My Life In Ruins are $5,718,459.

Distribution

The film is distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, while it will be distributed in all other locations by Echo Bridge Entertainment.

Critical reception

According to Fox Searchlight Pictures' President Peter Rice in the company's press release for signing a distribution deal for the film, the film gained positive feedback in early screenings:

"Given the wildly enthusiastic audience response, we are thrilled to be distributing the film. Nia's enormous box office appeal[s] along with her gift of perfect comedic timing make for a winning combination. Producers Michelle Chydzik Sowa, Nathalie Marciano, Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Peter Safran have proven that films with broad audience appeal can still be made independently."


Critics were not so kind. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 was unequivocal, in his review of June 3, 2009:

Rarely has a film centered on a character so superficial and unconvincing, [and] played with such unrelenting sameness. I didn't hate it so much as feel sorry for it ... The central question posed by "My Life in Ruins" is, what happened to the Nia Vardalos
Nia Vardalos
Antonia Eugenia "Nia" Vardalos is a Canadian-American actress, screenwriter, director, singer and producer. Her most notable work is the 2002 Academy Award–nominated film My Big Fat Greek Wedding.-Personal life:...

 who wrote and starred in My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a 2002 Canadian and American romantic comedy film written by and starring Nia Vardalos and directed by Joel Zwick. The film is centered on Fotoula "Toula" Portokalos , a middle class Greek American woman who falls in love with a non-Greek upper middle class "White...

? She was lovable, earthy, sassy, plumper, more of a mess, and the movie grossed more than $300 million. Here she's thinner, blonder, better dressed, looks younger and knows it. She's like the winner of a beauty makeover at a Hollywood studio. She has that don't touch my makeup! look ... Now she is rich, famous and perhaps taking herself seriously after being worked over for one too many magazine covers ... There is, in short, nothing I liked about "My Life in Ruins," except some of the ruins.


Scott Foundas, writing in The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...

(June 2, 2009), agreed:

My Life in Ruins Is Nia Vardalos' Strangely Self-Loathing Anti-Comeback: Substitute "career" for "life" in the title of this stillborn travelogue comedy, and you'll have a succinct verdict on My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a 2002 Canadian and American romantic comedy film written by and starring Nia Vardalos and directed by Joel Zwick. The film is centered on Fotoula "Toula" Portokalos , a middle class Greek American woman who falls in love with a non-Greek upper middle class "White...

writer/star Nia Vardalos
Nia Vardalos
Antonia Eugenia "Nia" Vardalos is a Canadian-American actress, screenwriter, director, singer and producer. Her most notable work is the 2002 Academy Award–nominated film My Big Fat Greek Wedding.-Personal life:...

, whose efforts to prove herself more than a one-megahit wonder have been greeted by audiences with an apathy previously reserved for the post–Crocodile Dundee
Crocodile Dundee
"Crocodile" Dundee is a 1986 Australian comedy film set in the Australian Outback and in New York City. It stars Paul Hogan as the weathered Mick Dundee and Linda Kozlowski as Sue Charlton....

 oeuvre of Paul Hogan
Paul Hogan
Paul Hogan, AM is an Australian actor best known for his role as Michael "Crocodile" Dundee from the Crocodile Dundee film series, for which he won a Golden Globe award.-Early life and career:...

 ... the result, written by The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...

alum Mike Reiss
Mike Reiss
Michael "Mike" Reiss is an American television comedy writer. He served as a show-runner, writer and producer for the animated series The Simpsons and co-created the animated series The Critic...

 and directed (in a manner of speaking) by Grumpy Old Men's
Grumpy Old Men (film)
Grumpy Old Men is a 1993 American romantic comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, and Ann-Margret, with Burgess Meredith, Daryl Hannah, Kevin Pollak, Katie Sagona, Ossie Davis, and Buck Henry. Directed by Donald Petrie, the screenplay was written by Mark Steven Johnson, who also wrote...

Donald Petrie
Donald Petrie
Donald Mark Petrie is an American film director.Petrie was born in New York City, New York, the son of Dorothea , a television producer, actor, and novelist, and Daniel Petrie, a director. Petrie has acted and guest-starred on television programs. His first directorial job was on the set of The...

, is a strangely self-loathing affair that paints Vardalos's tour group as a uniformly ill-mannered, culturally illiterate bunch, while rendering Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 itself as a badly plumbed third-world hellhole run by lazy, Zorba
Zorba
Zorba may refer to:*Zorba the Greek, a 1946 novel by the Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis**Zorba the Greek , a 1964 movie based on the novel**Zorba , a musical based on the novel and film...

-dancing louts.


Lou Lumenick
Lou Lumenick
Louis J. "Lou" Lumenick is an American film critic. He is the chief film critic and a blogger for the New York Post and has reviewed films there since 1999.-Life and career:Lumenick was born and raised in Astoria, Queens...

, of the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

, added on June 5, 2009:

BEWARE Greek-Canadians bearing comeback vehicles. At least if they're Nia Vardalos
Nia Vardalos
Antonia Eugenia "Nia" Vardalos is a Canadian-American actress, screenwriter, director, singer and producer. Her most notable work is the 2002 Academy Award–nominated film My Big Fat Greek Wedding.-Personal life:...

, who quickly disappeared from sight after improbably turning 2002's My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a 2002 Canadian and American romantic comedy film written by and starring Nia Vardalos and directed by Joel Zwick. The film is centered on Fotoula "Toula" Portokalos , a middle class Greek American woman who falls in love with a non-Greek upper middle class "White...

into the most successful romantic comedy of all time. Notably thinner, less awkward and a lot less charming, Vardalos is back with "My Life in Ruins," a desperate, crass and probably futile attempt at replicating the earlier movie's fluke success. This limp souvlaki
Souvlaki
Souvlaki or souvlakia is a popular Greek fast food consisting of small pieces of meat and sometimes vegetables grilled on a skewer. It may be served on the skewer for eating out of hand, in a pita sandwich with garnishes and sauces, or on a dinner plate, often with fried potatoes...

 of a movie is served without any noticeable enthusiasm by director Donald Petrie
Donald Petrie
Donald Mark Petrie is an American film director.Petrie was born in New York City, New York, the son of Dorothea , a television producer, actor, and novelist, and Daniel Petrie, a director. Petrie has acted and guest-starred on television programs. His first directorial job was on the set of The...

 (Grumpy Old Men
Grumpy Old Men (film)
Grumpy Old Men is a 1993 American romantic comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, and Ann-Margret, with Burgess Meredith, Daryl Hannah, Kevin Pollak, Katie Sagona, Ossie Davis, and Buck Henry. Directed by Donald Petrie, the screenplay was written by Mark Steven Johnson, who also wrote...

).


David Stratton
David Stratton
David James Stratton is an English- Australian film critic and television personality.-Life and career:Born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England in 1939, Stratton was sent to Hampshire to see out the war years with his grandmother, an avid filmgoer, where he was taken to the local cinemas regularly...

, of At the Movies, gave the film 1 out of 5 stars and said:

...maybe they [the Greek Government] read the script and they thought, 'This is a shocker'. And it is so bad, this film... the Australian characters are unbelievable throwbacks to another era...everybody is awful. And, unfortunately, she's [Vardalos] disconcertingly like Sarah Palin, and this really threw me during the film. But it's just such a crass [film] - and all these jokes about Poupi's name. That's supposed to be funny.


The film was nominated in the category of "Best Summer Romance Movie" at Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

's Teen Choice Awards 2009
Teen Choice Awards
The Teen Choice Awards, are an annual awards show that air on the Fox cable channel, that honor the year's biggest biggest achievements in music, movies, sports, television, fashion and more, voted by teen viewers aged 14 through 17. Winners receive an authentic full size surfboard designed with...

.
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