Eat Pray Love (2010)

Never read the book and thanks to this well-produced wretched film never will. The IMDb synopsis is inaccurate... you get no sense this broad is trying to have a kid or that her marriage has been failing. She one day decides she doesn't want it anymore and, props to the acting of Crudup, the husband has no reason to know why. Her subsequent lover is left with the same "huh?" moment. It's as if she needs to punish anyone who treats her well.

Only good looking men fall in love with Liz, and everyone admires her. She dumps her lovers and husband and the only friend that will tell her what she needs to hear, in the belief that "balance" lies so far outside herself that she has to travel the world (on a very tight schedule) to seek enlightenment. How she pays for it is never hinted at. And to have this bone-thin creature lecture another bone-thin creature on the need to "just enjoy eating, we can always buy a bigger pair of jeans" is insulting AND laughable. That the scene is followed by two bone-thin actresses faking attempts to "squeeze into" jeans is just insulting.

And the punch line? The woman who has wasted 2.5 hours of your life whining that everyone around her says she needs a man finally finds "balance"... by finding a man. And FYI EVERY man in this film is sensitive and caring. I have to say that the direction and very good supportive acting presents an effective image of all sorts of energetic life going on around Liz (and inviting her to be part of it) while she sits whining to herself in voice-over. But the unreality of EVERYONE LOVING HER is just a bit lame.

Fiction? Not much.

Oh, and why did I spend money to see this? A friend convinced me it would be great, and she is such a good friend and enjoyed it so much I will never tell her exactly how much I despised it. See? For people you care about sometimes you hold yourself back.

FYI Richard Jenkins is the only person Julia Roberts' Liz really connects to... and even that is ruined by a last-minute "Hollywood" moment. No spoiler here, you'll see it lumbering toward you like an elephant in the desert.

Fmovies: "Eat, Pray, Love" is about a wealthy, over-privileged woman who has a mid-life crises and instead of buying a sports car, she divorces her husband, has some affairs, and spends a boat-load of money.

I guess the moral of the story is that money can buy happiness.

This is the type of movie that makes people want to join the "occupy" movement. The whole point of the movie is that over-indulging is the way to find yourself and be happy.

And just to pour salt in the wound, in the scene where she is eating pasta in Italy is done to the music of Mozart's German opera "The Magic Flute." I guess nobody associated with this piece of trash was smart enough to tell the difference between Italian and German.

Do yourself a favor and skip this garbage.

I love travelogues and I'm a fan of Julia Roberts but, what happened here? I'm not sure in what period, time wise, it this set. The only turmoil seems to be in this very selfish forty-something. What about the rest of the world? She goes for a sort of journey of discovery in a world that doesn't really exist. Did I miss something? No wars, no economic crisis, no nothing, only the intimate qualm of a woman who I, personally, cannot feel represented by. I grant you I'm from another generation but, please! What is this. I loved the food and Javier Bardem and it is in fact the Bardem episode that brings some kind of recognizable something to the proceedings. So, let me recapitulate and ask you if we've seen the same movie...A woman facing an existential crisis and moves out from her marital abode without even having a discussion about it with her husband - a scrumptious Billy Crudup - then she has an affair with James Franco - who wouldn't, right? - but the Franco in this movie is just a plain reflection of the Franco from "Milk" just to name one title. The Naples presented here seems out of the mind of someone who's never been to Naples. I don't know what to say. I'm a bit puzzled and, I should confess, a bit annoyed.

Eat Pray Love fmovies. I did read the book but, I had hoped that this was going to be like "The Bridges Of Madison County". The film so much better than the book thanks to Meryl Streep's Francesca, a woman I could follow and learn from in every way. Here, my hero, Julia Roberts is as static as the page that originated her character. I couldn't and wouldn't get interested in her. Women, no matter how independent, remain nurturers by nature. I was desolate. I sided with her husband, Billy Crudup, totally. And what about the younger guy, James Franco, she takes instead of giving and she also takes from Richard Jenkins and Javier Bardem in Bali. It is in fact in Bali where I detected a glimpse of real emotion an emotion provoked by somebody else's feelings. I could see a film about that woman. Julia feels detached, as if she was just going through the motions. I'm sorry critics and public ganged up against her for her work in "Mery Reilly" An actress of Julia's talent and beauty could have contributed a sensational gallery of different women. Instead she seems stacked in this shrill, angry lady with very little to say.

I loved the book. I thought Julia Roberts as Liz was fantastic casting. The trailer looked awesome. I smiled every time I saw it. Turns out, I loved everything about this movie except the movie.

Long story short, it's all of the arc of the book, without any of the passion. While never horrible, this film simply made me feel nothing.

I found the book soulful, moving, even transformative at times. The greatest emotion I felt from the film was hunger (for Italian pizza), thirst (for Italian wine), and an occasional dizziness due to director Ryan Murphy's apparent recent discovery of how to "pan." It was laughable camera-work throughout the first 45 minutes, and occasionally throughout.

The first 1/2 hour of the film was almost unbearably bad, even though the first section of the book was amongst my favorites. Perhaps someone who did not read the book could enjoy this movie, but I somehow doubt it. One time Liz made a joke, that was a nice break from the feeling of being in a lukewarm bathtub for 2 1/2 hours. Not unpleasant, just meh.

Instead of finding Liz intelligent and thoughtful, she seemed selfish, boring, and obsessed with men. Instead of finding spirituality, she seemed vapid. When the character becomes shallow, a film centered around that character becomes a throw away. Maybe I'll just watch the trailer again.

...or everybody loves Julia. Free-thinking, never-been-to-me writer Liz, (Julia Roberts) decides to escape the rat race and her well-meaning but smothering husband to, of course, find her true self by travelling to Italy, India and Bali, as you would and experiencing real life in the process. We all should have her problems.

And yes, by the end, she's made umpteen life-long friendships, found her own guru and the power of zen, built a new home for a single-parent and child from contributions solicited from the afore-mentioned new pals and of course to top it all off, finds true love way out east to a handsome, swarthy Brazilian, who openly discusses his sex-life with his 19 year-old Australian (don't ask me why) son whom he kisses on the lips at goodbyes. Along the way she breaks the hearts of two young handsome guys, turns down another and connects seriously with everyone from a Swedish tourist and her tutor in Italy, a recovering Texan alcoholic and teenage girl going through an arranged marriage in India not forgetting her Latin lover, toothless ancient swami and his homeless nurse in Bali. Yes indeed, love surely grows where Lizzie goes.

The writing and acting are frequently look-away bad, the whole thing looking like a woman's magazine piece bloated out of all recognition. For some reason too, 70's music features heavily in the soundtrack - I just wondered what Neil Young might have made of two of his songs being pressed into action in support of this unbelievable, over-sentimental nonsense.

I can think of only one praiseworthy thing to say about this film...er, nice locations.