Eat Pray Love (PG-13)
Mike:
Scott:
Tonight I am reviewing Eat Pray Love
, which is somewhat of a mid-life crisis movie. We’ve seen these movies before, but normally they feature male leads. This movie stars Julia Roberts, as Liz Gilbert, as she struggles to find out who she is.
Based on the memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, the movie follows Liz as she figures out her marriage is not working and then realizes her life isn’t working either. Her journey of self-awareness takes her off-Broadway, then to Italy, India and finally Bali.
One thing I’ve always liked about films set in New York is that you can present the city in so many ways. You have the rom-coms that show every flower in bloom and the sun shining every day, you have the mob movies where the streets are always wet and every light brings more shadows. This movie showed hints of happy New York, but was more the sad city we see from time to time. It’s amazing to me that one city has so many personalities.
The same cinematography that brought that version of New York is on display throughout the rest of the movie in the other cities it visits. Rome comes across as warm with many shots at sunset. India comes across as dry and hot with overly white shots of the city. Bali is clearly where you want to be with its green colors and welcoming lights. The sites really set the mood for the movie.
Liz is married to Stephen (Billy Crudup). He is one of those people that never commits to anything. He constantly changes mind on what he wants to do in his life and as a job. Liz eventually realizes that this isn’t right for her. After she leaves her husband, she dates David Piccolo (James Franco), but that doesn’t work out either.
She is some type of writer, but I didn’t get clearly what kind of books she writes. She may write about travel, but I’m not sure. Her friend and editor Delia Shiraz (Viola Davis) is supportive of her leaving her husband and Delia’s husband Andy Shiraz (Mike O’Malley) thinks she should move on already. I was looking to O’Malley for some more humor, but it wasn’t that kind of movie.
The movie’s name comes from her travels. The first stop on her tour to find herself is Rome. There she meets Sofi (Tuva Novotny), a nice lady that helps her settle in to her new location. Those two embark on a feeding frenzy of Italian food. Sofi introduces her to new experiences and to her Italian friends. They all get together and eat even more food. One thing that’s funny in the movie is to pay attention to when they give thanks for Thanksgiving, does everyone get to give thanks?
She then moves on to India and lives in a temple. There she meets Richard from Texas (Richard Jenkins) who helps move her along in the second stage of her journey. It’s neat to see the differences between traveling in Rome versus India. How are they on the same planet? In India she learns to pray.
After India she finally arrives in Bali. Here she goes back to meet Ketut Liyer (Hadi Subiyanto), the man who helped her on her journey in the beginning. Liz is the kind of person that meets friends everywhere and it’s through chance encounters that she meets Felipe (Javier Bardem). It’s in Bali that she learns to love.
Movies like these you can take two ways, as entertainment, or as introspection. If you want to see a well acted movie, then this movie is for you. If you have a great life and no need for introspection, you may not like this movie. I like to watch movies like this and think of what they are saying. You aren’t going to change your life with a fortune cookie and you shouldn’t upon seeing a movie either, but they are nice to see and think about.
The movie is Eat Pray Love, but I saw it more as Friends Self Soul. She first had to find new friends, and she needed them to accept her as she was, and this was done through food. She then needed to find herself and love herself, and she did that through prayer. Finally she needed to fill her soul, this was through finding love.
Director and screenwriter Ryan Murphy and fellow screenwriter Jennifer Salt did a great job of showing us how Liz changed. They set the tone early and allowed the story to flow well. There were some times in India and Bali that the movie slowed down too much. The fun of Italy more than made up for that.
What did I think?
I liked the movie. I think it hit the spot. I loved the locations and it had a good diverse cast. At 2:13 it was a little long at times, but other times made up for it.
I give the movie a 3 for Comedy/Drama and a 3 overall
