My Life in Ruins
Georgia (Nia Vardalos) is a Greek American teacher who came to Greece to teach at a local college about Classic Greece. However, budget cuts caused her to be laid off and forced her to get a job as tour guide. She believes she has hit rock bottom when she loses her passion in everything. Informed by her boss, Maria (Bernice Stegers), that she ranks poorly as a guide because the tourists think she's boring, Georgia finds herself leading a tour around Greece with an assorted group of misfit tourists whom she believes is a failure since they seem to care more about buying T-shirts than learning about history and culture. Instead, she wishes to have a good group of Canadian tourists whom seems to be more engaged in history and culture than wanting to go shopping for souvenirs and hang out at the beach. Maria disagrees with Georgia's assessment, informing her that they are more interested in Nico (Alistair McGowan), a rival male tour guide also working for Maria because he's engaging in tours. As Georgia's tour departs, her driver is injured in an accident and is replaced by another driver, Poupi (Alexis Georgoulis).
In a clash of personalities and cultures, everything seems to go wrong and Georgia is on the verge of quitting as she can't connect with the group to get them to appreciate Greece and its culture. This is made worse when she voices her disgust with Maria for favoring Nico over her in letting his group stay in better hotels than her group. After being ignored again, Georgia decides to send a letter to inform her that she's quitting at the end of her tour and Maria can find another tour guide more tolerant to her and Nico.
One day, an older traveller named Irv Gideon (Richard Dreyfuss), helps Georgia see why she can't connect with the group: she finds them annoying and is bored with her current job. Therefore, he shows her how to have fun and teach her how to be more engaging to the tourists. This helps Georgia learn more about the current group of tourists she has and open her eyes to the different places where they come from. In doing so, she also teaches them the origins of the Olympic Games, which they take genuine interest in. While they become more immersed in Greek culture, Poupi begins to show interest in Georgia. However, Georgia's antics distract him while driving, and he narrowly avoids causing an accident on the road. At the hotel they're staying at, Georgia's female members of her group manages to stall a hurt Nico as Georgia, Irv and Poupi secretly sabotage his tour bus by stealing the air conditioning from it to install in her own bus. As the group begins to enjoy themselves at the beach, Irv becomes sick and they take him to the hospital. Georgia is unsure if she should continue and is concerned for Irv's health until Poupi encourages her to do so.
During her group's tour of the Parthenon, Georgia tells them why she likes coming there because at the right time, she could feel the wind from the ruins. While his own group looks around, Nico confronts Georgia and her group. Georgia realizes she ended up with the better group when he reveals that without air conditioning on his tour bus, Nico got a serious headache from having to hear his group complaining the entire time and he never bothered getting to know them. When Nico openly insults his group in front of Georgia and her group by calling them Americans, the Canadians are offended by this and start trying to beat him up. Georgia and her group visit the hospital where Irv is recovering well. At night when the group is celebrating the farewell party at a Greek buffet, Maria confronts Georgia for the letter and convinces her to stay with a promise of a raise after she produces the review logs with good reviews with her current group of tourists. She even admitted that she was glad Nico quit since she never liked being around him and only tolerated Nico because she knew his parents very well. Georgia begins a relationship with Poupi.
entertaining