Donald Petrie’s film ‘My Life in Ruins’, from a screenplay by Mike Reiss, tells the story of the adventures of a group of people on a packaged travel tour of Greece, led by their charismatic tour guide, Georgia (Nia Vardolas).

The film is carried by Georgia’s journey. Hers is a journey with a very broad arc. In the beginning Georgia is a rather disgruntled Greek tour guide who is always being getting poor feedback from her tour parties. is often hassled by her boss, as always as being constantly ‘trumped’ by the company’s other very handsome, spunky male tour guide. She is busily contemplating other career options, as well as making a new home away from Greece. By journey’s end Georgia has found a new lease on life, in many respects.

Cutting to the chase, the wittily titled ‘My Life in Ruins’ is no world beater of a movie. This is very safe, conventional, middle of the road movie making. The mix was predictable. There was a real travelogue feel to the film with plenty of panoramic albeit lovely shots of Greece placed alongside a lot of snippets of Greek history. The film was sprinkled with a bit too much schmaltz and sentimentality. The music score featured plenty of lush arrangements. There was the obligatory romantic encounter, as well as the compulsary motley group of oddball travellers from across our wonderous globe!

The riches in the film were the luminous Nia Vardolas in the lead. She is just so watchable, effusive, natural. Also, it was great to see Richard Dreyfus again, albeit much older now and with a much wider girth. Dreyfus gave a poignant performance as Irv, a good natured fellow traveller who builds up a friendship with Georgia whilst still being in the process of coming to terms with the recent death of his wife of many years. ‘My Life In Ruins’ did go some way into capturing the buzz of being part of a tour party.

Summing up, ‘My Life In Ruins, was enjoyable enough however it could have been aided with just having a bit of an edge to it.