Today’s Prayer Focus
MOVIE REVIEW

My Life in Ruins

also known as “Erotas ala ellinika”
MPA Rating: PG-13-Rating (MPA) for sexual content.

Reviewed by: Thaisha Geiger
CONTRIBUTOR

Moral Rating: Very Offensive
Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience: Adults, Teens
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Length: 1 hr. 36 min.
Year of Release: 2009
USA Release: June 5, 2009 (wide—1,100 theaters)
DVD: October 6, 2009
Copyright, Fox Searchlight Pictures Copyright, Fox Searchlight Pictures Copyright, Fox Searchlight Pictures Copyright, Fox Searchlight Pictures Copyright, Fox Searchlight Pictures Copyright, Fox Searchlight Pictures Copyright, Fox Searchlight Pictures Copyright, Fox Searchlight Pictures Copyright, Fox Searchlight Pictures Copyright, Fox Searchlight Pictures
Relevant Issues
Copyright, Fox Searchlight Pictures

What is true love and how do you know when you have found it? Answer

Love in the Bible

Should I save sex for marriage? Answer

How can I deal with temptations? Answer

How far is too far? What are the guidelines for dating relationships? Answer

What are the consequences of sexual immorality? Answer

Fornication

Sex, Love n& Relationships
Learn how to make your love the best it can be. Discover biblical answers to questions about sex, marriage, sexual addictions, and more.
Greece in the Bible

Athens, Greece

Greek

Grecians

Featuring Nia Vardalos
Richard Dreyfuss
Rachel Dratch, María Adánez, Macarena Benites, Sheila Bernette, Heather Blair, María Botto, Jareb Dauplaise, Alexis Georgoulis, Simon Gleeson, Caroline Goodall, Alistair McGowan, Christina Mitropoulou, Ralph Nossek, Natalie O'Donnell, Ian Ogilvy, Brian Palermo, Sophie Stuckey, Harland Williams
Director Donald Petrie — “Miss Congeniality,” “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” “Grumpy Old Men”
Producer 26 Films, Kanzaman, Playtone Productions, Playtone, Tom Hanks, Mark Albela, Michelle Chydzik Sowa, Peter Friedlander, Gary Goetzman, Nathalie Marciano, Denise O'Dell, Denis Pedregosa, Peter Safran, Rita Wilson
Distributor Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures. Trademark logo.Fox Searchlight Pictures, a sister company of 20th Century Fox, a division of The Walt Disney Company

“The star of ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ is finally going to Greece.”

Those looking for the repeated quality of the classic “My Big, Fat Greek Wedding,” should stay away from this cheesy, one-dimensional failure. Filled with broad stereotypes and crude sexual content, “My Life in Ruins” is much better skipped.

Georgia (Nia Vardalos) moved to Greece to teach a dream job at a university. Due to the university’s budget cuts, Georgia is now stuck as a tour guide. Not only is she considered boring for actually trying to teach her tourists about Greece’s invaluable history, her boss also hates her. On her latest tour, she gets assigned a new driver and a new group. Along the four-day tour, Georgia loosens up, learns how to live life, and even finds herself in a new relationship.

Where to begin? This movie fizzles in almost every way. First, the film is filled with one-dimensional stereotypes of tourists: the ignorant, the drunk, the sexually promiscuous, and the snobby, miserably rich. The theater audience stayed mostly silent, except for a handful of chuckles. Secondly, most of the jokes were either clichéd, flat, or sexually crude.

Offensive Content

Almost all of the comedy is sexually based. It ranged from licking ice cream to give sexual hints to close-ups of homosexuals licking their lips, waiting for the ignorant American to get drunk. While no actual sex scenes are shown, they are heavily implied with some women in bras and wrapped in sheets. When Georgia sleeps with her new-found interest, she and an older tourist congratulate each other when they realize that they both had sex that night. Throughout the film, sex is also preached as a key to happiness and “having fun.” Georgia is considered uptight since she “has not had sex in forever.” When she’s told that “sex sells,” she quickly stops telling the rich history of Greece and starts reenacting a sex scene between Zeus and some female in mythology.

Richard Dreyfuss plays Irv, the wisecracking tourist who first annoys Georgia, but then later helps her loosen up to enjoy herself. His advice is entirely in opposition of God and completely worldly and dangerous. He encourages her to have sex and to get in touch with her wild side. We must remember when Paul wrote, “for the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.”

Christians should take extreme caution in making sure that any worldly wisdom does not contradict with God’s Word. This reminds me of when Satan tried to tempt Jesus by giving folly worldly logic and even misquoting some Scripture. However, Jesus refuted everything the devil said by only using God’s Word as the true wisdom and not the foolishness of the world.

As for what this film aimed for, I am not entirely sure. If it was a coming-of-age movie, then its message is horrible by preaching to have sex outside of marriage. If it was meant to be a romantic comedy, there wasn’t much romance, since talking barely took place between Georgia and Poupi before their sleeping together, and as stated before, the comedy was just a few chuckles. My advice is to skip this movie.

Violence: Mild / Profanity: Mild / Sex/Nudity: Heavy

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.


Viewer CommentsSend your comments
Positive
Positive—I thought this was a very cute movie. There were some comments about needing more sex to lighten up, but I found these comments to be pretty tame. A cute movie for a girls night in. Kind of similar to “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” in comedic style and about the same as far as "crudeness". I loved that it showed a lot of Greece in all its beauty and people coming together and lifting each other up. Even though it wasn’t done in the very traditional “Christian” way, it was still cute. If you aren’t easily offended I would recommend this movie.
My Ratings: Moral rating: Better than Average / Moviemaking quality: 3½
Mya Bergen, age 26 (USA)
Neutral
Neutral—If I were to rate this movie on the basis of cute humor and a good romantic plot, I would have rated it positive. However, there were way too many crude and inappropriate sexual humor. This is definitely an adult movie and not recommended for teens. As I mentioned, it did have some cute moments and cheesy humor, but if you do see this film, be prepared for some nasties!
My Ratings: Moral rating: Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 3
Shannon, age 28 (Canada)
Negative
Negative—Not only I recommend passing up this movie, I suggest you don’t even waste your money on the DVD renal. I thought this would be a safe and enjoyable movie (PG rating) but was I disappointed! Dreyfus character was the worst… as the rest of the characters paint him as God or a sort of God, in one scene, Dreyfus dismisses himself as God and even states 'that’s something that Mother just made up…'. Overall, the movies stresses that the way to happiness is to loosen up and have more sex. Add to this, the cheesiness of the picture/light/sound quality and the lame rest of characters, and all you get is poor one-liners (most of them picking on God) carrying the entire movie. This was a horrible movie, don’t bother seeing it.
My Ratings: Moral rating: Very Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 2½
Lana Simon, age 39 (USA)