Eat Pray Love Synopsis: A married woman realizes how unhappy her marriage really is, and that her life needs to go in a different direction. After a painful divorce, she takes off on a round-the-world journey to “find herself”.
Realizing that she is not cut out for marriage, writer Elizabeth Gilbert (Julia Roberts) divorces her husband and decides to go on a year-long journey of rediscovery. She will spend four months in Italy, India, and finally, Bali. What Liz is hoping for is some spiritual renewal. Balance. A hot Brazilian lover would be a bonus, I’m sure.
I would be remiss not to say Eat Pray Love is not a romantic comedy. Any hint of romance is felt at the beginning of the film, particularly in the last forty-eight minutes, when Javier Bardem’s soulful divorcee, Felipe, is introduced. Given the 130-minute runtime, that’s not much to account for.
Eat Pray Love is about Liz’s journey and her desperate need to find balance in her life. I’ve seen this movie described as “wish fulfillment,” and it truly is. How many of us have dreamed of taking a year off work, walking away from responsibilities, and traveling to gorgeous countries in a quest to find ourselves?
Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way, at least not for those without a comfortable source of income. So yes, I was envious of Liz Gilbert’s life-changing journey, her open-air tropical home, the hunky Italian teaching her the language, and her never-ending plates of pizza and spaghetti. How privileged Liz Gilbert was to be able to experience all of this because, at some point, I’m sure we’ve all had an up-close and personal encounter with some form of existential crisis in our lives.
But, movies (and books) like Eat, Pray, Love seem to suggest that the path to spiritual and emotional enlightenment (and a great plate of pasta) is only accessible to those with the financial means to fund the journey. The rest of us will have to try to find God elsewhere if we have a spare moment in our busy lives to look.
After I finished the movie, I Google’d the real Elizabeth Gilbert only to find that her publisher gave her an advance of $200,000 to go on her journey and write her book. That tidbit of information is not included in the movie.
That being said, the movie itself is fine, but it’s much longer than needed. After Liz dumps her husband, Stephen (a very dorky, uninteresting, but otherwise sweet Billy Crudup), Liz jumps into an affair with a young actor named David (James Franco). This whole part of the movie felt unnecessary and out of place. Supposedly, they’re so passionately in love, but I didn’t feel it.
David folds Liz’s delicates. Okay, cute. He introduces her to Hinduism, and since it’s Franco, he makes it sound highly pretentious, though Liz is intrigued. Okay, that’s fine. But then, all of a sudden, they’re practically living together, and the cracks in their relationship begin to appear and widen. Roberts and Franco had zero chemistry. None. So, this part of the movie felt bogged down and out of place.
I would have instead spent more time with Liz and Stephen to see why they didn’t work. At first, when we meet the two of them, Liz mentions wanting to go to Aruba, but then Stephen doesn’t want to go to Aruba, and suddenly Liz seems to think that’s a sign from God that she should leave her marriage. That’s about it. We don’t gain any real insight into their marriage, whether it’s good or bad. It had to have been more than Stephen not wanting to go to Aruba that drove Liz away, right?
We’re left feeling that Liz divorced Stephen simply because she fell out of love, which is fine. It happens. But it also felt callous and impulsive, not a good start for the audience, who are supposed to root for Liz and want to stick around for the next two hours to see if she finds some semblance of a happy ending.
We also know very little about Liz herself or her family. What is it that’s driving her to seek spiritual guidance? What is happening in her life, or has that made her feel disconnected? She’s numb and unfulfilled. Why? There’s not always a rational reason for depression. It’s a terrible, horrible thing. However, Eat Pray Love does not reveal much about Liz beyond a brief divorce and a relatively short but happy fling with David.
Although I wasn’t impressed with the movie’s beginning, I enjoyed it much more once Liz arrived in Rome. The scenery is gorgeous, and the shots of food and wine are mouthwatering. It’s truly a love letter to Italy and the country’s marvelous cuisine. The supporting cast that surrounds Roberts is fantastic. They never feel dull or one-dimensional. They become Liz’s family, and you genuinely believe it. This was probably my favorite part of Liz’s journey.
From Rome, she travels to India in search of God at an ashram. There, she scrubs floors and has trouble shutting off her mind to meditate. Instead, she seems more focused on how to decorate her meditation room back home. Thankfully, Liz seems to understand how shallow this is, but just in case, another American, Richard “from Texas” (Richard Jenkins), calls her out on it. Richard and Liz start off on the wrong foot. Still, Liz begins to respond to his brutal honesty, and soon, Richard feels comfortable telling Liz his heartbreaking reason for being in India, helping Liz to come to terms with the act of forgiving herself for breaking Stephen’s heart (I think).
Jenkins gives a highly poignant performance here, and I can confidently say it is the best performance in Eat Pray Love. He steals every scene and is the voice of reason, never allowing Liz to sink into self-pity for too long, frustrating her as he talks in “bumper stickers.” Ultimately, it feels as though she learns more from him than from the ashram. At the very least, he helps her find her ability to meditate and the spiritual guidance needed to move on from her guilt over her life choices.
Liz also befriends a young girl named Tulsi, who is dealing with her desire to go to school and learn psychology, but will soon be wed thanks to an arranged marriage by her parents. I suppose Tulsi’s situation is meant to help Liz’s spiritual growth and help her understand and recognize her privilege, but it felt flippant and dismissive. Liz dedicates her meditation to Tulsi in the hopes that Tulsi will be happy with her new husband. Tulsi never looks very happy about it, but it made Liz feel better, so I guess that’s important.
In Bali, Liz spends time with a traditional medicine man named Ketut, whom she had visited the year before, when he had instructed her to return so he could teach her everything he knew (and so that she could teach him English). She also gets run off the road by Felipe, with whom she soon starts an intense love affair. This portion of the movie is about Liz finding “balance” while finally understanding that she cannot be afraid to love again.
I really don’t have much to say about this. Throughout the movie, Liz is constantly frustrated and rolls her eyes when someone comments about the lack of a man in her life. She’s traveling alone (gasp) and divorced (gasp). She needs a husband (groan)! One might think Liz could get through this movie, find herself, and be content with who she is, without needing a man. But what else can you do when Javier Bardem declares his eternal love for you?
This is a long review, I know. But it was a long movie. And, like the movie, this review probably could have been cut down significantly. Eat Pray Love was an alright movie. Julia Roberts shines on screen, as usual. But I didn’t understand Liz’s motivations for her trip, and she came across as a bored, selfish white woman privileged enough to have the funds to take a long vacation.
I understand that this is probably not entirely accurate. If I had read the book, I might have gotten it, but I didn’t, so I could only go on with what the movie told me. I think the only reason I liked Liz at all was that Roberts is so damn charming. This character requires a lot of likeabilities, and Roberts has them.
The supporting characters were the highlight (beyond the many mouthwatering shots of the cuisine), and Murphy has always had an incredible skill for inserting depth into even the most minor roles. They all felt like fully fleshed-out people to me. Gorgeous locations added to the experience.
Beyond that, I walked away from Eat Pray Love without feeling anything. Just a rather… meh, okay, that was fine. But it’s not one I’ll likely ever watch again. It passed the time I spent on my flight, and that was all I needed.
Watched: 10/10/2019-10/14/2019
Notable Song: Harvest Moon by Neil Young
