Eat Pray Love

Eat Pray Love

Based on the New York Times best-seller, Eat Pray Love was released in theaters with a whole lot of hype. This was going to be a classic chick flick, starring the greatest chick flick actress of our time, Julia Roberts, and directed by Ryan Murphy, the creator of Glee and Nip/Tuck. Unfortunately, despite everyone's best efforts, Eat Pray Love is a stinker. Even worse, it is a dull stinker.

Julia Roberts plays Liz, who after a painful divorce, decides to take a year to travel to three different locations in the world in order to heal: she travels to Italy ("Eat") in order to rediscover joy in her life and eat a lot, she attends an ashram in India ("Pray") in order to rediscover her balance and heal her emotional wounds, and she hangs out in Bali ("Love") to rediscover...well, love. This sounds like it could have been a terrific travelogue of a film, but unfortunately it never really works.

The main problem is that Liz is just plain unlikable in the beginning. I understand that she has lost her way and needs to find herself, but the way she goes about casting off her husband (Billy Crudup) seems a bit too cruel to me. Maybe that is the point. In the beginning, Liz is supposed to be unsympathetic and as the movie progresses, she grows less controlling, less selfish, and more likable. But I don't really feel this evolution. This movie needed to have a transcendental moment, something transformative, awe-inspiring and beautiful that reaches all of us in the very fibers of our being. The movie certainly wants to do this and it desperately tries to, but it doesn't come close. But instead, it just tells us via narration. Liz is stressed and can't find her balance in one scene. And then the next scene, she says, "hey, I found my balance." The reason why she was able to find her balance is compelling, but they should have shown it instead of just telling us.

Which ultimately is the main problem with the film. They tell us everything and show us very little. There is a lot of Liz talking about herself, both in dialogue and in a voiceover narration, and the movie is trying so hard to intellectually explain what is happening to her that it never allows any true emotion to come out. Instead it says, "and now, Liz feels emotion and you can, too."

All this is compounded by the fact that the movie is so long and feels even longer. Sigh.

Not to say it is all bad. If the movie fails in its entirety, it sometimes works better on the more micro level. Eat Pray Love tries really hard to give us a sense of what Italy, India and Bali are like, with mixed success. Probably it succeeds the most in Italy, where a lot of time is spent discussing the Italian language, complete with a montage of Italian hand motions (with subtitles explaining what they mean). This goes on for some time, but is amusing and is certainly more interesting than the emotional journey of the characters. The Italy section also benefits from some really great looking food, all filmed beautifully.

I also want to point out that for all the film's faults, you cannot level any of the blame on the actors. Julia Roberts fights valiantly and it is a testament to her innate likability that you don't hate Liz on the spot (despite the script's best efforts). Richard Jenkins, James Franco, Viola Davis, Javiar Bardem, I. Gusta Ayu Puspawati, and others all put in fine work. I refuse to blame them for this movie.

So to wrap this all up, I know I should be applauding a movie for trying to be different, for trying to reach up and be about something, instead of relying on the old Hollywood formulas. The movie desperately wants to be deep and inspiring, and I respect that. But it is a wasted opportunity. This story could have had us all sobbing, our tears full of fear and empathy in the beginning and full of joy at the end. But ultimately, it only inspired me to want to take a nap.

MVP: I think the MVP should probably go to Richard Jenkins as Richard from Texas. At first, he just seems to be mean for mean's sake, but eventually the film allows Richard to open up. Once Jenkins is allowed to play a human being and not a grumpy old cliche, he truly shines in the role, delivering one terrific monologue about why he is at the ashram. Jenkins is a classy actor, and I am always happy to see him. He is a bright spot here.

TRIVIA: Rome has two soccer teams, the AS Rome and the SS Lazio. The two teams are fierce rivals, no doubt made worse by the fact that AS Rome has a bigger following internationally. In the Eat Pray Love book, Mr. Spaghetti is a huge SS Lazio fan. But because the team wasn't well-known enough, the producers of the film decided to make Mr. Spaghetti an AS Rome fan. If you don't think this is a big deal, then you don't understand soccer fans! The decision created an uproar among SS Lazio fans and a ton of gloating from their rivals!