Though Nia Vardolos is by no means the most beautiful actress ever to be cast in an "ugly duckling" role, those gender studies specialists with a "lookism" ax to grind will no doubt quibble that thousands of heftier and\or homelier SAG-card-carrying possibilities were passed over in order to enable Nia to essentially reprise her role from MY BIG FAT GREEEK WEDDING. However, when her "Pangloss Tour" group laggers "Big Al" and Kim Sawchuck (Harland Williams and Rachel Dratch, respectively) inform Nia's Georgia-the-tour-guide character toward that end of the movie that they've been calling her "Angie" all week because Nia could double for Angelina Jolie, my suspension of disbelief took a real big hit. The same could be said for the moment when Georgia's substitute bus driver "Poupi" (Alexis Georgoulis), who begins the story as a scruffily-bearded stalker-type, is soon revealed on the beach as someone who actually COULD double for famous romance novel cover model Fabio. However, this film gets better as it goes along, and I suspect many critics who castigated it did not bother to actually watch the whole thing (they just use the press kit to fill in the gaps for the final two-thirds of any genre movie that does not float their boats).
Review of My Life in Ruins
