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Ryan Murphy’s Journey with Eat Pray Love
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir of enlightenment gets the deluxe treatment at the hands of Glee creator Ryan Murphy, who bathes every scene in a golden glow. Unaccustomed to being alone, Liz (Julia Roberts) exits her marriage to Stephen (Billy Crudup, quite good) only to enter into an affair with an actor (James Franco, curiously uncomfortable), who introduces her to meditation. Just as her editor, Delia (Doubt's Viola Davis, making the most of a small role), longed to have a baby, Liz has longed to see the world. Delia persuades her to seize the day (plus, money presents no obstacle). First, she travels to Italy, where she noshes from Rome to Naples, making new friends along the way. Then, she heads to an ashram in India, where she meets a bride-to-be and a remorseful man (Richard Jenkins, heartbreaking), who nurture her altruistic side. Her sojourn ends in Bali, where she reunites with Ketut (Hadi Subiyanto, hilarious), the healer who first encouraged her to reassess her situation. While there, she befriends a single mother and a single father (No Country for Old Men's Javier Bardem) who falls for her charms. In an improvement over his version of Running with Scissors, Murphy combines two Oscar winners, two Oscar nominees, and four countries to follow one woman's path to fulfillment. Like Julie and Julia and How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Liz's story becomes more involving as she lets go of the superficial, but Murphy's movie still represents a triumph of escapism over spirituality. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Product Description
Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) is a modern woman on a quest to marvel at and travel the world while rediscovering and reconnecting with her true inner self in Eat Pray Love. At a crossroads after a divorce, Gilbert takes a year-long sabbatical from her job and steps uncharacteristically out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life. In her wondrous and exotic travels, she experiences the simple pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of love in Bali. Based on an inspiring true story, Eat Pray Love proves that there really is more than one way to let yourself go and see the world.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
78 of 97 people found the following review helpful
I read and loved the book, or more accurately, I bought the audio book and Elizabeth Gilbert read her book to me. From my vantage point on the other side of midlife, I can say that Elizabeth has the same problem a lot of people have, they are in an unhappy relationship and think the problem is the other person. Of course, it never is entirely the other person but usually one doesn't discover this until after the second bad marriage.
Elizabeth chucked everything and went on a journey to herself. If you pay attention to the subtleties of the movie, she begins her enlightenment when it stops being about her and starts being about other people. Richard, who lived up the highway from here until his death recently was certainly a real person and was portrayed in the movie very much like in the book.
The scenes in Bali were spectacular. The miraculous healing potions of Wayan were as described in the book.
When the movie was over, I felt that it was a "little too neat" in that some of the angst and agonizing were omitted as side plots and not important to the main story but in the book they were very interesting. My companion (another woman who had not read the book) remarked that she was glad it wasn't a "love story". In my opinion it was a love story about learning to love yourself and open yourself up to life. A lesson we all need to be reminded of.
Do yourself a favor, read the book, see the movie, read her next book. Enjoy!
Elizabeth chucked everything and went on a journey to herself. If you pay attention to the subtleties of the movie, she begins her enlightenment when it stops being about her and starts being about other people. Richard, who lived up the highway from here until his death recently was certainly a real person and was portrayed in the movie very much like in the book.
The scenes in Bali were spectacular. The miraculous healing potions of Wayan were as described in the book.
When the movie was over, I felt that it was a "little too neat" in that some of the angst and agonizing were omitted as side plots and not important to the main story but in the book they were very interesting. My companion (another woman who had not read the book) remarked that she was glad it wasn't a "love story". In my opinion it was a love story about learning to love yourself and open yourself up to life. A lesson we all need to be reminded of.
Do yourself a favor, read the book, see the movie, read her next book. Enjoy!
283 of 373 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Let me preface this by mentioning I haven't read the book, though I've been meaning to, and after seeing the film first, I can only hope the book form is better. As a travel buff, I've been looking forward to watching this film, and I knew from the get-go that this would be a film about a woman's ennui and unfulfilled life. Yes, I know, first world problems--cue roll of the eyes. But I think many people can relate to the emptiness that pervades life on occasion.
That being said, even as someone sympathetic to this kind of plight, I found the character Liz to be utterly insufferable and a practically impossible woman to relate to. The film has Liz, lying in bed with her husband, looking bored and lonely. She gets out of the bed she shares with her husband to go downstairs to literally kneel down and ask for God's help for the first time, sobbing in the room of her multi-million dollar home. The problem with this entire premise is that her emptiness isn't presented in a way that is relatable to the audience. With film, the exercise is to convey what is inside by external means; the audience cannot magically divine what is going on with the characters. I understand what the INTENT was: her husband doesn't have the travel bug; her husband has ideas but doesn't stick to a single one to make it his passion; her husband doesn't share her curiosity of life, an inclination for what is MORE; she has it all but is still unsatisfied--there's no spark, no excitement. But for me these were not conveyed convincingly. Instead, we have Julia Roberts (playing Julia Roberts) crying, staring at the wall, yelling, acting like an overgrown brat with an alarming sense of entitlement. She purports to look within, but she doesn't. She turns her rage to those around her, and that's a fatal flaw in the film from which it never recovers.
The premise is very promising and intriguing: woman with all the trappings of life searches for more meaning in life by empowering herself--after all, it is often touted that money cannot buy happiness, and there are situations in real life where people who don't have much are happier than those with a lot (more money, more problems). Depression, for example, doesn't skip a person just because he or she is wealthy. Money and material goods are clearly not guaranteed keys to happiness and fulfillment. But instead of taking the opportunity to lay that foundation and build upon this premise, the filmmakers seem to skip it altogether in favor of pretty travel shots, apparently unable to take on the storytelling task. Is it difficult, especially in this economy, to make a film about the dissatisfaction and existential angst of a well-off woman? Yes. But it is not impossible, and if they are going to make a film based on this premise, they better well try to sway the audience. Unfortunately, they seem to just rely on Julia Roberts' "America's Sweetheart" status to replace effective narrative. The idea itself is interesting; the execution is the problem (most people can relate to the experience of seeing a fantastic trailer for a film or reading a film summary and getting excited, only to be disappointed after seeing the actual film).
In a meeting with the lawyers and her husband, Liz glares at her husband with the fire of a thousand suns, resenting him for being, well, him. Rightfully, her husband frustratingly informs her that she never sat him down to tell him what's wrong, never gave him a chance to try to fix it if she had such a problem in the marriage. The audience really only sees what ANNOYS her (e.g., he wants to do a postgraduate degree, he doesn't want to go to Aruba). Are these "flaws" big enough for her to just walk out one day? At least this warrants a serious sit-down talk about each of their goals and feelings, right? No. Liz doesn't feel connected to him, and instead of sitting down like adults, she decides to leave, cold turkey, because if you don't get what you want out of life, the lesson is you must drop all your problems and run. It is understandable for someone to want to end a marriage if she is unhappy, but to just cut it off abruptly without a serious discussion (and assuming abuse or infidelity haven't occurred, which, in this film, they haven't) is unreasonable and paints the person as a spoiled brat who never learned how to navigate life in an adult world. This is a bad start to a film...an unsympathetic protagonist. Oh, God, how many more minutes do we have to spend with this woman? Did she really just leave her husband because some medicine man in Bali six months before told her one of her marriages would be short? Really? How gullible are you, Liz? The filmmaker really missed out on capitalizing on one genuine moment in the film -- her husband, in the elevator after the meeting with the lawyers, looking truly broken by his wife's abrupt abandonment. Do we get to explore her need to do this in spite of her husband's deep love for her? No, we get Liz's three-second look at his broken figure before she decides to run abroad an cavort with strangers who are meant to fix all her problems.
Throughout the film, Liz makes no real decisions; rather, she allows others to do the thinking for her, which makes for tiresome viewing. The writing and direction are aimless and sloppy. Far too much of the film is spent on her romance with a struggling actor, David (James Franco), who is more of a caricature than someone along the road who truly enlightens Liz and helps her on her journey. He's young. He's handsome. He follows an Indian guru (shrine adorning his apartment), sounds like a fortune cookie, and is a complete poser. He states he has never been to India, but he wants to one day, and spends his day looking sexily forlorn, a tortured soul, when, in fact, he's just like those wannabe Goths who shop at Hot Topic (except he's the hippie version). One day, he wakes up to find half of his bed empty. Where's Liz? She has moved herself to the floor beside the bed, looking like someone just killed her puppy. Again, she doesn't talk about the problem. She just moved her bed to the floor like a petulant child because, again, as with her husband, she's unfulfilled and wants to break up for no discernible reason. Okay, maybe Prozac is in order?
We are meant to take away from this romance the idea that David inspired Liz's trip to India. After all, she never would have known about that guru if it weren't for this poser. Get it, audience? Each person she meets is like a clue to the next spot on the treasure map. Get it? Except the character of David is so hastily written and lazily portrayed that the impact of his influence is negligible (seriously, James Franco looked like he phoned-in his scenes, and even he admitted that he knows the film is terrible and that he only did this film to have the experience of working with Julia Roberts).
The Italy chapter of the film is the most enjoyable, simply because it plays like a fun travelogue -- food porn, fun people, pretty sights. Here, we get a little break from Liz's overbearing personality. We meet some other characters who welcome Liz with open arms, and there are beautiful shots of quaint cafes and restaurants, plates of delicious food, and beautiful cityscapes. For once, we get to see Liz just ENJOYING herself without lashing out, and for a moment the audience can forget Liz as Liz; she's just an American enjoying Italy like any tourist would, looking at Italy with new eyes.
I expected the film to escalate and become even more profound as we head to India, but the narrative takes a serious and boring dip here. You know all the foodcentric tie-ins in the promotion of this movie? It ends with Italy, and it is understandable, seeing that Italy is the "eat" of the triumvirate, but since the spirituality aspects of India and Bali are so clumsily portrayed that one cannot help but feel cheated by the rest of the film. Okay, if we can't have genuine spirituality, at least show how decadent the other places are. There's more to India and Bali than ashrams and huts. It's as if the writers and filmmaker didn't know what to do about India. "Hm, what's India known for? Gods! And poor people. Okay, this part of the film will be about Gods and poor people. It'll be like a spiritual thang." So we have Liz living in an ashram, cleaning and doing practically nothing, and this is where she meets a Texan named Richard, played by the amazing Richard Jenkins, the highlight of the film. Though his character is paper-thin, Jenkins is so gifted and nuanced in his acting that he's able to flesh out a full character out of practically nothing. He's like your favorite uncle who wise-cracks and kicks you in the seat of your pants once in a while to set you straight. It is too bad that his character disappears rather quickly, which deflates the rest of the film. The writers try to flesh out India by introducing a 17-year-old girl forced into an arranged marriage (a heavy-handed parallel to Liz's own marriage, complete with flashbacks), but by then it is too late. Chapter 2 is already dead in the water. There's no spiritual enlightenment, just a disrespectful fast food approach to prayer and meditation. You just sit quietly, cross your legs, close your eyes, and spread your arms out. That's all, folks.
The film then skips abruptly to Bali, as if it did all it could do in India. Here we have the return of the toothless guru, who, like the Franco character, speaks like a fortune cookie and appears more like a stereotype more than anything else. Liz refers to him as "Yoda." He's quirky, speaks with an accent, wears a sarong, and reads your palm...OF COURSE he's enlightened! He's from Bali! He's infused with magic! All the houses have no walls. It's really weird here! Read more ›
That being said, even as someone sympathetic to this kind of plight, I found the character Liz to be utterly insufferable and a practically impossible woman to relate to. The film has Liz, lying in bed with her husband, looking bored and lonely. She gets out of the bed she shares with her husband to go downstairs to literally kneel down and ask for God's help for the first time, sobbing in the room of her multi-million dollar home. The problem with this entire premise is that her emptiness isn't presented in a way that is relatable to the audience. With film, the exercise is to convey what is inside by external means; the audience cannot magically divine what is going on with the characters. I understand what the INTENT was: her husband doesn't have the travel bug; her husband has ideas but doesn't stick to a single one to make it his passion; her husband doesn't share her curiosity of life, an inclination for what is MORE; she has it all but is still unsatisfied--there's no spark, no excitement. But for me these were not conveyed convincingly. Instead, we have Julia Roberts (playing Julia Roberts) crying, staring at the wall, yelling, acting like an overgrown brat with an alarming sense of entitlement. She purports to look within, but she doesn't. She turns her rage to those around her, and that's a fatal flaw in the film from which it never recovers.
The premise is very promising and intriguing: woman with all the trappings of life searches for more meaning in life by empowering herself--after all, it is often touted that money cannot buy happiness, and there are situations in real life where people who don't have much are happier than those with a lot (more money, more problems). Depression, for example, doesn't skip a person just because he or she is wealthy. Money and material goods are clearly not guaranteed keys to happiness and fulfillment. But instead of taking the opportunity to lay that foundation and build upon this premise, the filmmakers seem to skip it altogether in favor of pretty travel shots, apparently unable to take on the storytelling task. Is it difficult, especially in this economy, to make a film about the dissatisfaction and existential angst of a well-off woman? Yes. But it is not impossible, and if they are going to make a film based on this premise, they better well try to sway the audience. Unfortunately, they seem to just rely on Julia Roberts' "America's Sweetheart" status to replace effective narrative. The idea itself is interesting; the execution is the problem (most people can relate to the experience of seeing a fantastic trailer for a film or reading a film summary and getting excited, only to be disappointed after seeing the actual film).
In a meeting with the lawyers and her husband, Liz glares at her husband with the fire of a thousand suns, resenting him for being, well, him. Rightfully, her husband frustratingly informs her that she never sat him down to tell him what's wrong, never gave him a chance to try to fix it if she had such a problem in the marriage. The audience really only sees what ANNOYS her (e.g., he wants to do a postgraduate degree, he doesn't want to go to Aruba). Are these "flaws" big enough for her to just walk out one day? At least this warrants a serious sit-down talk about each of their goals and feelings, right? No. Liz doesn't feel connected to him, and instead of sitting down like adults, she decides to leave, cold turkey, because if you don't get what you want out of life, the lesson is you must drop all your problems and run. It is understandable for someone to want to end a marriage if she is unhappy, but to just cut it off abruptly without a serious discussion (and assuming abuse or infidelity haven't occurred, which, in this film, they haven't) is unreasonable and paints the person as a spoiled brat who never learned how to navigate life in an adult world. This is a bad start to a film...an unsympathetic protagonist. Oh, God, how many more minutes do we have to spend with this woman? Did she really just leave her husband because some medicine man in Bali six months before told her one of her marriages would be short? Really? How gullible are you, Liz? The filmmaker really missed out on capitalizing on one genuine moment in the film -- her husband, in the elevator after the meeting with the lawyers, looking truly broken by his wife's abrupt abandonment. Do we get to explore her need to do this in spite of her husband's deep love for her? No, we get Liz's three-second look at his broken figure before she decides to run abroad an cavort with strangers who are meant to fix all her problems.
Throughout the film, Liz makes no real decisions; rather, she allows others to do the thinking for her, which makes for tiresome viewing. The writing and direction are aimless and sloppy. Far too much of the film is spent on her romance with a struggling actor, David (James Franco), who is more of a caricature than someone along the road who truly enlightens Liz and helps her on her journey. He's young. He's handsome. He follows an Indian guru (shrine adorning his apartment), sounds like a fortune cookie, and is a complete poser. He states he has never been to India, but he wants to one day, and spends his day looking sexily forlorn, a tortured soul, when, in fact, he's just like those wannabe Goths who shop at Hot Topic (except he's the hippie version). One day, he wakes up to find half of his bed empty. Where's Liz? She has moved herself to the floor beside the bed, looking like someone just killed her puppy. Again, she doesn't talk about the problem. She just moved her bed to the floor like a petulant child because, again, as with her husband, she's unfulfilled and wants to break up for no discernible reason. Okay, maybe Prozac is in order?
We are meant to take away from this romance the idea that David inspired Liz's trip to India. After all, she never would have known about that guru if it weren't for this poser. Get it, audience? Each person she meets is like a clue to the next spot on the treasure map. Get it? Except the character of David is so hastily written and lazily portrayed that the impact of his influence is negligible (seriously, James Franco looked like he phoned-in his scenes, and even he admitted that he knows the film is terrible and that he only did this film to have the experience of working with Julia Roberts).
The Italy chapter of the film is the most enjoyable, simply because it plays like a fun travelogue -- food porn, fun people, pretty sights. Here, we get a little break from Liz's overbearing personality. We meet some other characters who welcome Liz with open arms, and there are beautiful shots of quaint cafes and restaurants, plates of delicious food, and beautiful cityscapes. For once, we get to see Liz just ENJOYING herself without lashing out, and for a moment the audience can forget Liz as Liz; she's just an American enjoying Italy like any tourist would, looking at Italy with new eyes.
I expected the film to escalate and become even more profound as we head to India, but the narrative takes a serious and boring dip here. You know all the foodcentric tie-ins in the promotion of this movie? It ends with Italy, and it is understandable, seeing that Italy is the "eat" of the triumvirate, but since the spirituality aspects of India and Bali are so clumsily portrayed that one cannot help but feel cheated by the rest of the film. Okay, if we can't have genuine spirituality, at least show how decadent the other places are. There's more to India and Bali than ashrams and huts. It's as if the writers and filmmaker didn't know what to do about India. "Hm, what's India known for? Gods! And poor people. Okay, this part of the film will be about Gods and poor people. It'll be like a spiritual thang." So we have Liz living in an ashram, cleaning and doing practically nothing, and this is where she meets a Texan named Richard, played by the amazing Richard Jenkins, the highlight of the film. Though his character is paper-thin, Jenkins is so gifted and nuanced in his acting that he's able to flesh out a full character out of practically nothing. He's like your favorite uncle who wise-cracks and kicks you in the seat of your pants once in a while to set you straight. It is too bad that his character disappears rather quickly, which deflates the rest of the film. The writers try to flesh out India by introducing a 17-year-old girl forced into an arranged marriage (a heavy-handed parallel to Liz's own marriage, complete with flashbacks), but by then it is too late. Chapter 2 is already dead in the water. There's no spiritual enlightenment, just a disrespectful fast food approach to prayer and meditation. You just sit quietly, cross your legs, close your eyes, and spread your arms out. That's all, folks.
The film then skips abruptly to Bali, as if it did all it could do in India. Here we have the return of the toothless guru, who, like the Franco character, speaks like a fortune cookie and appears more like a stereotype more than anything else. Liz refers to him as "Yoda." He's quirky, speaks with an accent, wears a sarong, and reads your palm...OF COURSE he's enlightened! He's from Bali! He's infused with magic! All the houses have no walls. It's really weird here! Read more ›
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Amazon Instant Video|Amazon Verified Purchase
I can't really add anything to the growing list of observations made by the mostly exasperated viewers of this film. A day after I watched this self-indulgent b.s., for some reason the movie Silkwood popped into my head, and I longed to see Cher sitting on that porch swing, giving the performance of a life time as Dolly Polliker. The observations of a poor lesbian in Texas may not sound like something that would present a transformational moment, but it moved me to tears; something that this movie could only hope to aspire to do in its dreams. If you want to wash away the memory of his disappointing performance in E.P.L., I suggest that you re-watch Milk to remind yourself of what tenderness James Franco is capable of portraying. Richard Jenkins gives the only authentic performance in this movie- not sure if it's worth slogging through an hour and twenty minutes to get to, but it's definitely the most moving part. If you want to go on a journey of real forgiveness and redemption try Big Fish. Billy Crudup,(the much- maligned caricature of a husband) gets a chance to shed the years of animosity he's felt towards his father by taking a trip through the fantastic stories he's spun over the years, in the hopes of de-bunking them all, only to discover that there's a grain of truth in every one. If you want to watch a movie that will inspire you to re-evaluate your relationships and then do everything that you can to create authentic connections within them, this is the one.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Read the book first.
I usually don't watch a movie based on a book I really like because it is almost always disappointing. Read more
Published 18 hours ago by Ms. Marilyn K. Higgins
Runaway Bride Meets Knotting Hill in Bali
This movie is a chick flick. Julia Roberts is a lost soul. She is married to a fine faithful man who loves her, but she wants more and leaves him to "find herself. Read more
Published 2 days ago by movie lover
Not so good . . . but
I preferred the novel to the movie. At times, the movie felt shallow, and self-absorbed.
There are a few problems with this story (love it or hate it); but at the end of... Read more
There are a few problems with this story (love it or hate it); but at the end of... Read more
Published 18 days ago by Meena Fairoak
Eat Pray Love
This movie is by far one of the best movie I have ever seen. At first it seems like a "chick flick" but the message behind it can easily apply to everyone.
Published 26 days ago by Christina Jaynes
Very uplifting journey!
I watched the movie and was so intrigued by it, I went and bought the book. A lot of people will not appreciate Elizabeth's experiences and the way she learned how to live her best... Read more
Published 27 days ago by Mercedes Madden
mamamia
Brande new, great price, fast delivery. And it takes me around the world to amazing places. The movie leaves out some of the information from the book but I have enjoyed both.
Published 1 month ago by me
great movie..very original
This excellent movie begins as the Roberts character's life is falling apart after divorce so much so that she can not even enjoy the things she previously enjoyed food and... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Anthony Marinelli
just OK
this will be a short review. I feel Julia Roberts was miscast in the role. i usually love all her work, but she just did not fit the part, couldn't show the right expressions or... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jill Matthis
Excellent Movie
A great movie which takes the viewer through a different perspective of life. Julia Roberts does a wonderful job portraying a woman with life struggles.
Published 1 month ago by Jolly Jill
Loved the movie
Loved the movie, loved the book. I wish I was able to drop everything and be Julia Roberts in the movie for a while.
Published 2 months ago by Rebekah J. Scott
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