There are some films naïve enough to make cynics splutter but sentimentalists coo. Donald Petrie’s tale about a striving middle-aged tour guide in Greece finding love with the handsome driver of her coach is one of them. And love is not all she finds on the way to the Acropolis, where apparently the wind blows through the ancient columns somehow proclaiming the meaning of life. She also discovers that her mixed bag of tourists are not idiots after all but lovely
people.

There’s Richard Dreyfuss as a gregarious widower who misses his wife dreadfully on the quiet. There’s an old lady who filches ghastly mementos and hands them around as gifts. There is the inevitable quota of stupid Americans who think Greece is the name of a musical. All human life is there and it looks pretty grim to our fading heroine.

But Georgia (Nia Vardalos, remember her in My Big Fat Greek Wedding?) survives everything thrown at her and, in the end, triumphs. As for the love interest, her driver (Alexis Goergoulis), once he gives up the pretence that he doesn’t speak English, suddenly becomes a strong, silent Greek type anyone would fall for on a coach trip. He thinks that underneath her somewhat dowdy exterior lies a real live woman — and so it transpires.
What a comforting fable to warm us as the evenings draw in. Away with cynicism! Enjoy if you can. The cast look as if they did.