Eat Pray Love Review
By Beth McCabe
Italy and India and Bali, oh my!
Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) is a writer in Manhattan whose life is safe and without passion. Her milquetoast husband Stephen (Billy Crudup) is drifting every bit as much as she is, but unlike Liz, he's in denial. When in the middle of the night, they both wake up and he tells her "I don't want to go to Aruba," her response is simply "I don't want to be married." And with that, her story, "Eat Pray Love" (directed by Ryan Murphy), really begins.
A chameleon, Liz immediately dives into another relationship, this time with David (James Franco, trying too hard), a twenty-something actor/yogi, who is just as happy to settle for unhappiness as Stephen is. As she deals with her messy divorce - which her ex is by now pathetically resisting - she redefines herself as David's girlfriend, increasingly aware of her restlessness. After a comment from a friend that she is now even beginning to resemble her new love, she realizes she has to get out. So she books a trip to Italy (Eat), India (Pray) and Bali (Love) and off she goes.
Her time in Italy plays like a love letter to Rome. The food. The ancient buildings and cobblestone streets. The bustle of effusive Italians. The way the language rolls off the tongue... It makes you want to walk out of the theater and book your ticket straight away. Here, with the help of a group of friends she picks up along the way, she grows out of her jeans and learns the "sweetness of doing nothing," something the Italians are convinced Americans know nothing about. They may be right.
And as soon as that's mastered, she's off to India, for a jarring change of pace. She checks into the Ashram of the Guru Gita to find... well, she's not quite sure. Between the meditation, floor scrubbing, even a brief vow of silence, it doesn't really seem like a great time. She does meet Richard (Richard Jenkins) though, a Texan who speaks in platitudes and who is fighting his own demons. As annoying and abrasive as he is, they become close and ultimately he shows her what she's looking for: forgiveness.
Which, of course, brings us to Bali. Like Italy, what's not to love? Javier Bardem is endearingly ridiculous (and attractive) as the Brazilian Felipe, who, along with a local medicine man, rounds out the colorful cast of characters and leads Liz to the conclusion of her journey and her year. Whew.
133 minutes of soul searching is a lot, yes, but there's something about this film that makes it not so bad. Perhaps it's that you don't really see much of it. While things must certainly be going on in Liz's head, there's no window into that. It's something that may have been lost in translation when Elizabeth Gilbert's popular novel was adapted into the screenplay by Ryan Murphy (who co-created/writes "Glee") and Jennifer Salt. Julia Roberts is as radiant as ever and maybe it's because of this lack of inner monologue that she manages to keep her quest non-whiney and fairly light. No there's not hidden depth around every corner. Yes there are a handful of ways the ending could have been stronger. But the story is still engaging enough (and the scenery beatiful enough) to make one just a touch more forgiving than they would be otherwise. The end result is a charming, if long, diversion... which may have you checking out airfare when it's done.
