Eat Pray Love - 2 smiles

I didn’t read Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir, but I’m well aware of the difficulty of translating the effective communication a writer has with her readers into a visual medium such as a movie. And I’m guessing that Liz didn’t come off as a bored, self-centered whiner in her book, where her obvious premise is to recount a journey of self-discovery. Unfortunately, the movie, starring Julia Roberts, doesn’t fare as well. One morning Liz (Roberts) decides she doesn’t want to be married any more. “You know what I feel when I get up in the morning?” she complains to her husband of a decade (Billy Crudup). “Nothing.” Maybe she’s empty inside, but since Roberts doesn’t do introspective very well, we have to settle for bored. So after a brief dalliance with a younger actor (James Franco), Liz takes off on a yearlong, around-the-world quest for self-fulfillment that’s basically a beautiful travelogue, but not much more. I think the biggest flaw with “Eat Pray Love” is the 135-minute length; it’s just too long. And although Roberts does her best to make Liz appealing, it’s a losing battle and there’s no real sense of an emotional journey and lessons learned.

In Italy, Liz eats a lot of enticing food – the pizza and pasta are mouth-watering – and meets some nice people. Her biggest crisis is struggling to get into a pair of jeans. Liz moves on to India where she arrives at an ashram to learn to meditate. Here she endures some mild criticism from Richard from Texas (Richard Jenkins), a recovering alcoholic whose revelations about his own sad life are supposed to show Liz the path to enlightenment. Finally she travels to Bali where she falls for the scruffy Felipe (Javier Bardem), who, like Liz, isn’t looking for love. If you read and liked the book, you might have a different reaction to “Eat Pray Love.” I’d like to know if you did. 8/13/10