When I first heard the title My Life in Ruins, my initial thought was, "Great, a depressing movie." When I sent an email to a friend asking if she wanted to join me for the movie, her first thought when she read the subject line was that my life had taken a tragic nosedive. But while its title may make Nia Vardalos's newest film sound like one downer of a summer movie, as its story reveals, ruins aren't always the collection of rubble we assume them to be. And while it is a bit slow to start and saccharine-sweet in parts, in the end, its story of finding happiness by letting go and discovering love where least expected is a cute tale that sends you away smiling.

In much the same way Vardalos's Toula won audiences over in her 2002 breakout hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding, her Georgia, a history professor who came to Greece to teach and ended up leading tourists around its ancient ruins, also steps onto the screen as a woman we can identify with. Although two of her tour group members tell her she looks like Angelina Jolie, that fact that she isn't one of the "sexiest women alive" with one of the "sexiest men alive" in tow makes you feel like you might actually have a few things in common. And struggling to figure out what in the world she is doing in both her personal and professional life as everyone around her looks on as if she is crazy, she tells us all that even if no one else seems to understand or care about our own similar struggles, she does.

As friends, coworkers, and complete strangers tell Georgia without hesitation, her problem is that she doesn't have any kefi, Greek for passion, spirit, or mojo. As Georgia sees it, her problem is that she just can't seem to grasp the life that she is passionate about. While her culture seems to greet everything from bankruptcy to winning the lottery with dancing, as Georgia sees it, most of the dancing going on around her is nothing more than denial. And while those around her keep telling her to take a coffee break, with a busy tour schedule to keep and a life in desperate need of repair, for Georgia, taking a break is simply not an option.

But when Georgia finds herself not only surrounded by a culture that barely recognizes any reason for her fretting but also confronted by a tour group that would happily spend all day eating ice cream on the beach (and a driver with an ability to see joy and beauty wherever he looks), Georgia's life of constant strategizing and effort is put to the test. "They're laughing at your name," she tells her driver Poupi (Alexis Georgoulis). "So what?" he responds. "Laughing is good." "Do you ever question what you're doing with your life?" she asks him. "How can you plan life?" he asks back. "It was magic. For 28 years I woke up every day smiling," Irv (Richard Dreyfuss), the group's clown, tells Georgia of his life with his wife. "I wish I could be happy like you," responds Georgia. And with a sly smile and a nudge to let go and open up, Irv pushes her to see that happiness is right in front of her.

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