Friday, May 31, 2019

My life in ruins

Completely by chance, this romantic comedy (also known as 'Driving Aphrodite') was shown on TV this week and of course I had to watch it in case I recognised anything. As a film, it was lousy: as one review states: this movie falls pretty flat. The comedy writing is contrived and predictable. There were some laugh out loud moments but they were too few and far between. Most of the characters are cardboard cut-outs. They are unbelievable and obnoxious. As another one puts it, My Life in Ruins is corny, clichéd, predictable and a totally fun way to spend an afternoon. Every now then a movie will come along and change your life. This is not one of those movies. It is not highly original or well acted but it is a funny and feel good film. I couldn't agree more.

In the first scene, the lead actor, Georgia, steps out of her apartment in what appears to be a road very close to the Acropolis. We were in such a road the other day (the Segway tour), but I think that this was a studio set. The shots of the Acropolis itself are real, as are the shots of Delphi; one of the streets full of stalls appears to be Adrianou Street but doesn't have to be. Other than this, the geography of the trip bares no relation to the geography of real Greece. Delphi is not next to the sea; as one comment of IMDB says, After the mystical visit to Delphi and the oracle, the evening scene is down at a port with a white Greek church high on the mountain like on the Greek Island of Tinos. There is no way to come down from the ancient ruins of Delphi and sit at the sea port of Tinos! We could have gone to Tinos for a day as it is the closest island to Andros, but we didn't. We could even have taken the car!

It's nice to have one's memories renewed, but apart from that, this film isn't worth the hour and a half that I spent watching it. The tour guide (Georgia) is pretty and is lit well in all her scenes (actually she's in every scene) which makes some form of compensation.

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