Zorb a the Greek was the rare movie that proclaimed it was about the life force and managed to embody it anyway, reviving the spirits of audiences in 1964 and maybe for all time. So it's depressing to see it reduced to a touchstone for a measly little picture called M y Life in Ruins.
This cute title rests on top of a sappy scenario about a Greek-American scholar named Georgia (Nia Vardalos) who loses her university job in Athens but finds her soul or spirit or chi or mojo - or, as the Greeks say, her kefi - while working as a guide for a seat-of-the-pants touring company.
Anthony Quinn's Zorba raised joy to a profound exaltation of the physical life.
Georgia, under the influence of a deus ex tour bus named Irv (Richard Dreyfuss), a wise old widower and would-be comedian, mainly discovers that she must loosen up in order to experience fun, success and romantic fulfillment. She learns to articulate her passion for ancient Greece colloquially and personally, in sexy fables, not dry facts. She gets her whole bus dancing, with Zorba's style, if not his passion.
And she grows to appreciate the man sitting right in front of her: her bus driver (Alexis Georgoulis), who sees his job as a poetic vocation that makes him feel at one with the gorgeous scenery. With the humor typical of Mike Reiss' script, this lyrical fellow is named "Poupi" - pronounced "Poopy." His last name is "Cacas." He also has a nephew named "Doody."
In the glory days of Hollywood ballyhoo, the ads would have built up this manly new star with "Alexis Georgoulis - That's Long for Gorgeous!" Certainly, the director, Donald Petrie, feels that way. He gives Georgoulis the close-up treatment from the beginning, to show that Poupi roots for Georgia's transformation from stick in the mud to life of the party. (Goodbye, romantic suspense.)
But this is Nia Vardalos' movie. Though she earned her success in My Big Fat Greek Wedding with a salt-of-the-earth performance, the kudos here belong to whatever physical-training program makes her look far more svelte than she did seven years ago. If she has retained her fans thanks to video and cable - her only other movie, Connie and Carla, flopped in 2004 - they'll go to My Life in Ruins to see how great she looks, in an infomercial sort of way.
They certainly won't go for the writing. The supposed comic complications include Georgia's competition with the smarmy, gratingly ingratiating Nico (Alistair McGowan), the touring company's only other guide, for the best buses, hotels and tourists. The guides especially vie for nice, polite Canadians.
Early on, Georgia makes the critical mistake of thinking that a high-powered International House of Pancakes salesman (Brian Palermo) is the man putting flowers on her bus chair. The rest of the supporting characters come from the International House of Stereotypes. They include beer-swigging Australians, overly loud and casual Americans, hot Spanish divorcees on the make, and an emotionally repressed British couple with a suitably depressed daughter.
Sheila Bernette, as an aged pickpocket, is less a stereotype than an escapee from some provincial British comedy of the early 1950s. But she steals necklaces and knickknacks with such finesse and gusto that she also steals the movie.
Too bad it amounts to petty theft.
My Life in Ruins
(Fox Searchlight) Starring Nia Vardalos, Alexis Georgoulis and Richard Dreyfuss. Directed by Donald Petrie. Rated PG-13. Time 95 minutes.
