Review: Eat Pray Love

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Liz (Julia Roberts) and the rogue elephant

It's been a while since I read Elizabeth Gilbert's bestselling memoir -- and I've read many books since then -- so the story was not exactly fresh on my mind when I watched Eat Pray Love. As someone who is wary of book-to-movie adaptations, I found that the movie remained somewhat true to Gilbert's book, as I remembered it. However, the film fails to capture some of the best aspects and, unfortunately, the true essence of the original work, even as it follows the same plot.

Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) endures a painful divorce (from a morose Billy Crudup) and an unhealthy relationship with a younger actor (James Franco) before she realizes she needs to define who she is and what she wants. She expresses to her editor pal Delia (the wonderful Viola Davis) her desire to travel for a year, and the movie flows from there.

Liz goes to Rome to enjoy food, India to attend her guru's ashram, and Bali to study with a medicine man. As she travels, new relationships blossom. In the book, we read about Elizabeth Gilbert growing into her self and coming to love who she is. In the movie, Liz Gilbert cries a lot. I didn't count, but I'd estimate at least eight times. Her handsome Brazilian lover Felipe (Javier Bardem) cries as well, but at least his tears seem authentic. When Julia Roberts cries as Liz, it seems forced and flimsy. Like director Ryan Murphy was yelling at her from behind the camera, "Cry now!" If movie Liz Gilbert is growing into her self, her self is a weepy mess.

The cinematography is superb in Eat Pray Love; the colors of Italy, India and Indonesia are bright and vibrant and the landscapes gorgeous. Visually, it's a lovely movie to watch. I don't really understand why the lighting bestows ridiculous halos to various actors during the film, though. I started worrying about the writing when I read that Murphy was pressuring his co-writer to make the screenplay more like The English Patient, but my worries were for naught. Some language in the movie is directly from Gilbert's book, and the rest has the same sort of flavor.

Eat Pray Love wants to be an empowering -- dare I say, feminist? -- film. Liz becomes an adviser and someone to lean on as she travels. In a Naples pizzeria, she assures her friend that extra belly fat is sexy. In the ashram, she comforts her young Indian friend who yearns to study psychology. In Bali, she finds a way to take care of her healer friend and her daughter. Throughout her travels, she demurs when asked whether she's married, as if she's close to being comfortable on her own, in her own skin. But melodrama and the romantic comedy tropes used in the movie serve to zap the power out of it in the end.