Georgia's (Nia Vardalos - My Big Fat Greek Wedding) life is in ruins... literally. She has moved over from America to Greece where she wanted to get a job working in a university. Sadly that hasn't worked out for her so she pays the bills by acting as a tour guide showing groups of tourists the ancient ruins of her home country. She hates her job and wants to quit and this feeling is perpetuated when she gets a glimpse of her latest tour group. With a new driver called Poupi (Alexis Georgoulis) seemingly uninterested in her woes and a rival tour guide looking to steal her buisness, Georgia has her work cut out for her. But maybe she will find direction and purpose in her life amongst all of this chaos.
Driving Aphrodite has been renamed on its UK release. Being known as My Life In Ruins everywhere else probably opened this movie up for some obvious criticism. It's a hard film to hate but there are some really bad racial stereotypes thrown about here and some of the gags are too obvious and direct to really land where they should. That said, its a nice distraction of a film that plays its romantic comedy element quite well thanks to two strong lead performers doing their best with a shoddy script.
Nia Vardalos is always watchable and her natural charm makes it easy for us to to like Georgia. Alex Georgoulis also does well to breathe life into the role of Poupi who could well be the answer to Georgia's problems. Richard Dreyfuss lends some acting clout as the cocksure Irv and Alistair McGowan does well playing up to the now stereotypical role of a swarmy Greek man. It's not his fault that the role is so paper thin but the talented Brit manages to handle it with a decent effort.
Anyone who has ever been on a european coach tour can definitely find something to laugh at and relate to here. In that respect, Driving Aphrodite is a film that has some well-observed humour and a cast that tries hard. It does just about enough to make you look past the bad script and take this light comedy for what it is.
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