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I think I deserve something beautiful.
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat Pray Love)
I really wasn’t going to review the awful film Eat Pray Love (dir. Ryan Murphy). I didn’t want to re-visit a big waste of time. Maybe I can spare one person a bad experience though. I know that I’m going against the grain – people love Julia Roberts, love the book it’s based on – so I apologize in advance, I thought the film sucked.
While trying to get pregnant, a happily married woman realizes her life needs to go in a different direction, and after a painful divorce, she takes off on a round-the-world journey. Based on the memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert. (IMDB) or blah, blah, blah.
My friend Jonathan Elliot’s blog asks if this film is New Age or Hindu. I said neither. Casting a big Hollywood star like Roberts reeks of the materialism rejected by each area. It’s very good to bring Hindu ideals to the masses but I see Mary-Louise Parker in the role actually. A HUGE Hollywood movie star is like ‘buy me ’or buy Hinduism. The slickness…
He says, “The book is a good introduction to Hinduism because it gives a feel for what day-to-day life might be like for a (Western) Hindu, a religion I find quite hard to fathom given it’s huge age, diversity and – to be honest – weirdness.” The film wasn’t even weird just boring.
A few people I know could not stand the film and were happy that my perspective seemed to validate their own. I have never encountered such a hush-up tone to a film. That itself makes me want to scream – loud.
A psychologist was interviewed about the film on the radio. She said that it’s hard to translate introspection and navel-gazing to the big screen. I disagree except for this film. I mean look at My Own Private Idaho (Van Sant). She also said that Gilbert (main character) always had a man in her life and that continues via teachers etc. Sure, her guru is female but she is absent – she is an absent-presence. The same song, only in Sanskrit.
The film yanked at my travel-bug. However, I wanted to jump off this bus. I also want to eat exquisite food. However, the important representation of food could have been more lush. I am reminded of the wonderful aesthetic in Marie Antoinette helmed by Sofia Coppola. Let them eat cake, indeed.
I was going to leave the theatre mid-way through the film. I absolutely did not care about Julia Roberts’ character. The character in the film was not written well at all. She was unsympathetic and flat. Javier Bardem was the only eye-candy for me that made this film bearable.
One review says, “So let’s break this down, shall we? Love stories are much more tangible when they have substance: fewer reaction shots, more substance. There was enough to work with here to make this a solid film, but ultimately Eat Pray Love falls victim to its own storyline, and ends up another silly love story rather than a credible piece of filmmaking.” (Smells Like Screen Spirit) Yup.
This film was poorly made: bad film-script, direction, editing, cinematography. Eat Pray Love was hollow – the worst this year.
Blech.
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