My Life in Ruins - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

According to Fox Searchlight Pictures' President Peter Rice in the company's press release for signing a distribution deal for the film, the film gained positive feedback in early screenings:

"Given the wildly enthusiastic audience response, we are thrilled to be distributing the film. Nia's enormous box office appeal along with her gift of perfect comedic timing make for a winning combination. Producers Michelle Chydzik Sowa, Nathalie Marciano, Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Peter Safran have proven that films with broad audience appeal can still be made independently."

Critics were not so kind, as the film received just a 9% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 119 reviews, with the consensus: "With stereotypical characters and a shopworn plot, My Life in Ruins is a charmless romantic comedy." Roger Ebert was unequivocal, in his review of June 3, 2009:

Rarely has a film centered on a character so superficial and unconvincing, played with such unrelenting sameness. I didn't hate it so much as feel sorry for it ... The central question posed by "My Life in Ruins" is, what happened to the Nia Vardalos who wrote and starred in My Big Fat Greek Wedding? She was lovable, earthy, sassy, plumper, more of a mess, and the movie grossed more than $300 million. Here she's thinner, blonder, better dressed, looks younger and knows it. She's like the winner of a beauty makeover at a Hollywood studio. She has that don't touch my makeup! look ... Now she is rich, famous and perhaps taking herself seriously after being worked over for one too many magazine covers ... There is, in short, nothing I liked about "My Life in Ruins," except some of the ruins.

Scott Foundas, writing in The Village Voice (June 2, 2009), agreed:

My Life in Ruins Is Nia Vardalos' Strangely Self-Loathing Anti-Comeback: Substitute "career" for "life" in the title of this stillborn travelogue comedy, and you'll have a succinct verdict on My Big Fat Greek Wedding writer/star Nia Vardalos, whose efforts to prove herself more than a one-megahit wonder have been greeted by audiences with an apathy previously reserved for the post–Crocodile Dundee oeuvre of Paul Hogan ... the result, written by The Simpsons alum Mike Reiss and directed (in a manner of speaking) by Grumpy Old Men's Donald Petrie, is a strangely self-loathing affair that paints Vardalos's tour group as a uniformly ill-mannered, culturally illiterate bunch, while rendering Greece itself as a badly plumbed third-world hellhole run by lazy, Zorba-dancing louts.

Lou Lumenick, of the New York Post, added on June 5, 2009:

BEWARE Greek-Canadians bearing comeback vehicles. At least if they're Nia Vardalos, who quickly disappeared from sight after improbably turning 2002's My Big Fat Greek Wedding into the most successful romantic comedy of all time. Notably thinner, less awkward and a lot less charming, Vardalos is back with "My Life in Ruins," a desperate, crass and probably futile attempt at replicating the earlier movie's fluke success. This limp souvlaki of a movie is served without any noticeable enthusiasm by director Donald Petrie (Grumpy Old Men).

David Stratton, of At the Movies, gave the film 1 out of 5 stars and said:

...maybe they read the script and they thought, 'This is a shocker'. And it is so bad, this film... the Australian characters are unbelievable throwbacks to another era...everybody is awful. And, unfortunately, she's disconcertingly like Sarah Palin, and this really threw me during the film. But it's just such a crass - and all these jokes about Poupi's name. That's supposed to be funny.

The film was nominated in the category of "Best Summer Romance Movie" at Fox's Teen Choice Awards 2009.