Georgia (Nia Vardalos, left) is a Greek-American tour guide who falls in love with Poupi the bus driver (Alexis Georgoulis) in the romantic comedy My Life in Ruins. (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Within four steps of the theatre doors after I saw My Life in Ruins, a kind of memory cleanse occurred. Did that just happen? Did I actually experience something? What was it? For victims of torture or illness, this film could be some kind of miracle cure: total erasure in less than two hours.

A kind of unthinking person's Shirley Valentine, My Life in Ruins is even lighter than My Big Fat Greek Wedding, with little of that film's go-girl allure.

Such lightness was part of the reason for the surprise success of My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), which starred Nia Vardalos. She’s appeared in only one movie since then, the unfortunate Connie and Carla. The TV version of Wedding evaporated quickly, which is surprising, because the film churns along the exact mechanics of a sitcom.

That makeover movie, in which a dowdy Greek-American (Vardalos is actually Canadian, as many jokes in her new film attest) falls in love with a dream man who takes her as she is, possessed a few charms, mostly located in its star. Something in Vardalos’ real woman face, and the warmth it radiates, connected with audiences to the tune of $369 million US worldwide. The little film became the new definition of an out-of-nowhere smash.

A kind of unthinking person’s Shirley Valentine, My Life in Ruins is even lighter than Wedding, with little of that film’s go-girl allure. Vardalos plays Georgia, a laid-off academic living in Greece and working as a reluctant tour guide. She’s lost her “kefi” – her mojo, her thang, her swing – and isn’t finding it by imparting the history of the Acropolis to tourists who would rather eat ice cream and experience their Hellenic ruins in soap-on-a-rope form. These tourist characters are stock irritants: the shoplifting British lady; the clueless Americans (well played by Rachel Dratch and Harland Williams); the horny Spanish divorcees. Georgia must also contend with a sabotaging fellow tour-guide (he gets the good bus and the easy-going Canadian clientele), played with Benigni-like élan by Alistair McGowan.

But a font of wisdom is on Georgia’s tour in the form of class clown Irv (Richard Dreyfuss), a widower in gag suspenders. Dreyfuss, for whatever reason, decided to fully commit to this slight film. He’s strangely touching – and so very out of place – as a man who takes the long view on life and death, nudging Georgia out of her funk and towards a romantic dalliance with the bus driver. This hairy, Sasquatchian Greek (Alexis Georgoulis) is in touch with his own kefi, and awaiting the makeover that will turn him into a more appropriate leading man. The love interest’s name, by the way, is Poupi. Poupi Cacas. Sit with it. Ponder it. Die a little inside.

Widower Irv (Richard Dreyfuss, right) provides wisdom and guidance for Georgia in My Life in Ruins. (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Vardalos wrote Wedding, but My Life in Ruins is the work of Mike Reiss, a former TV writer who has contributed to some good programs (The Simpsons), some unforgiveable (Alf). Even with polishing by Vardalos, Reiss's script has the strange effect of making Wedding look thoughtful and subtle by comparison.

At least Vardalos’ writing found its emotional pulse in her character’s identity as an outsider, but in Ruins, Georgia is a whining empty vessel. Every hack situation she’s placed in – the A/C on the bus is broken! – is surrounded by hack jokes. I must reiterate: this blunt instrument of a script will ask you to laugh at the name Poupi, and several times. The writing is so trite that it makes Two and a Half Men look like it was penned by Haruki Murakami.

This time, Vardalos’s transformation isn’t physical – leave that to Poupi. In fact, she’s consistently a knockout with a deep tan and muscular legs, all shot flatteringly by director Donald Petrie (Miss Congeniality). Georgia undergoes more of an internal, Oprah-approved transformation, a “best self” quest set against the sublime landscape of Greece (and Spain, apparently).

Producers are probably praying for another inter-generational woman’s picture like Mamma Mia!, something that will catch fire against the Terminators of the summer. As one of their target audience – The Ladies – I’d love to see Vardalos, ever likeable, give the robots a run for their money. But My Life in Ruins is – wait. What is it again? What are we talking about here? Opa!

My Life in Ruins opens June 5.

Katrina Onstad is the film columnist for CBCnews.ca.