Eat Pray Love Movie Review …

Walt Disney Pictures presents “Tangled,” one of the most hilarious, hair-raising tales ever told. When the kingdom’s most wanted-and most… A woman who once made it her goal in life to marry and rear a family finds her priorities suddenly shifting in Ryan Murphy and Jennifer Salt’s adaptation of author Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling memoir Eat Pray Love. In the eyes of many, Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) was a woman who had it all, which included a loving husband, a great career, and a weekend home, but sometimes one realizes too little too late that they haven’t gotten what they truly wanted from life.

On the heels of a painful divorce, the woman who had previously looked forward to a contented life of domestic bliss sets out to seek her true destiny by traveling first to Italy, where she learns to appreciate nourishment; then to India, where she discovers the power of prayer; and finally to Bali, where she unexpectedly finds the meaning of true love.

To begin, we must understand that Eat Pray Love is a film made for a very specific audience who have already read and loved the memoire of the same name by author Elizabeth Gilbert. Saying that, it is important to also realize that a book and a film are significantly different art forms, and where some books have been successfully adapted to the big screen, some do nothing more than crash and burn. I’d like to say sorry for everyone who loved this film and book because this is going to be a bad review.

Actually, now that I think about it, I’m really not sorry at all. Eat Pray Love was actually a pretty bad movie. At best, it was a superficial rummaging through Italy, India, and Bali in order for the protagonist, Liz Gilbert, to bring meaning into her life through self discovery. The problem with this film was that it was impossible to be engaged to the protagonist. Now don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with an examination of existential angst and urban malaise, but I’m going to have to see the protagonist actually deal with the issues in her path rather than to simply flee from them. And if it wasn’t bad enough that she runs from all her problems, she finds it impossible to avoid international stereotypes on her great journey to learn to Eat Pray Love.

It’s quite interesting when you look at the plot of Eat Pray Love because it is such a simplistic plot that the title actually is the plot. She Eats, she Prays, and She Loves. Even stranger is that she actually does it in that order. Italy (Eat). India (Pray). Bali (Love). But even the most simplistic plot is capable of being a great movie, but when it seems like the director, Ryan Murphy, doesn’t care one bit about storytelling, the film looses all meaning. The complete lack of storytelling comes from the cinematography that makes the exotic locals look breath taking.

What? Breathtaking? How is that bad you might ask? Well, it’s no secret that the film is quite beautiful to look at, and the exotic locals look breathtaking, but so does America, which is supposedly the prison of her soul. Brief walks down the sidewalks of New York are lit as lusciously as a bike-ride in the Balinese fields. Simple lighting could make America look like a slum, but since everything looks the same, the audience sits in awe as the protagonist seemingly throws away a “perfect” life.

In the end, Eat Pray Love is simply not a move for me, but for a specific audience that will overlook its countless cinematic flaws. I also went into this film with an utter dislike of all the actors, but even I have to admit that they were charming enough for me to keep watching the film. For a veteran actress like Julia Roberts, Eat Pray Love was a walk in the park that in no way tested her acting abilities.

Same goes for James Franco who was completely out of his element, but was able to be convincing enough that I’ll pay attention to him in the future. I think the problem with a film and book like Eat Pray Love is that it simply isn’t capable of transcending its medium. It’s a memoire that found its success in book form, and as a book that is able to inspire the masses, it should remain in that state of form. The film is actually quite nice to look at, and actually has some nice footage of exotic locals, but the director wasn’t able to move past the “prettiness” of the film. As a result, we have a film that has no soul or heart.

Eat Pray Love movie trailer

Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is no stranger to this life. He’s been elected as a Texas liberal Democrat congressman and his life is simple and good. His staff is made up by voluptuous women, he’s filling some of his lonely nights with the right-wing Houston millionaire socialite Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), who is now alarmed of the attacks over Afghanistan by the Russian army. The USA cannot intervene officially, that’s for sure, but there’s gotta be a way to help the Afghans who are slaughtered like cattle by the aviation raids and the bombs planted on the ground.

The movie is based on George Crile’s book, published in 2003 and it looks like this Charlie Wilson is not a fictional character. Which of course will surely give us great confidence in our politicians.

So, back to the action.

Since they cannot send money and weapons without turning the “cold war” into a very nasty “normal” one, the USA have to look for another way. Because Joanne won’t settle with a “no” and Charlie, after a visit to a refugee camp in Afghanistan is so shaken he’s almost lost interest in late night boozing.

They need the help of the CIA and, since falling from his superior’s grace (after breaking the office window and impolitely asking the boss to f.. himself), Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) doesn’t really have anything better to do, so he’s willing to support the cause.

The USA would have all the logistics, but they cannot afford to have any weapons marked “USA” in Afghanistan, so they need Soviet weapons. Paying for this is not an issue. From 5 to 10 million it takes just a meeting and people don’t really pay attention to what they are voting on. This is how Charles Wilson, as part of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, can get funding just with a call. Again, yet another showcase of how things are done by the people elected to guard the public interest.

Since the Israelis do have a lot of guns and could send them to Afghanistan through Pakistan, the only predicament is they cannot really be convinced to work together. Not to mention not even the Afghan people can know how they got helped. This is where Gust comes in handy. He knows the right Israeli guy to help them.

Charlie runs his little show from the shadow while also escaping arrest for coke-consuming in Las Vegas. How does he do it? The witness claims she’s seen him consuming in the Cayman Islands, out of the US jurisdiction. So, even if a proved sinner, he cannot be convicted.

This is the kind of politician he is. This is the kind many of them are. Still, when it comes to winning his secret war, Charlie did rise to the occasion. He was able to raise $1 billion to help with the war logistics. Still, the moment all was solved and the Afghan people could have used schools (half their population was under 14), the USA representatives who got involved in raising that billion, couldn’t be convinced to raise 1 million. Or, as Charlie had said:

These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world… and then we fucked up the endgame.

Even if a biographical political drama, the movie does have his funny scenes and is easy to watch, even by people who couldn’t care less about wars and politics. The cast is quite good and the 3 main actors are performing as expected. Totally recommended.

In the meantime Dr. Harrison Copeland (Patrick Dempsey) makes sure he’s covering the day from his concubine, so that he can spend some quality time with the official wife. Of course, as any gentleman would do, he does prepare some flower arrangements for them both. Bad karma makes him chose Reed’s flower shop for this and Reed is best friend with his lover.

Love is there for old guys too. Senior couple Edgar and Estelle (Shirley MacLaine) are celebrating many years together and do this with good perfume, flowers and a night out.

Young Edison, although still a kid, has got a serious crush on some girl and decides it’s the best moment to let her know about his true feelings. So he’s employing Reed too with a very important mission: take some flowers to the “woman” he loves.

In an airplane Captain Kate Hazeltine (Julia Roberts) counts the hours till she can be again with that someone special in her life. She’s an officer and she’d been away for the past 11 months.

Liz (Anne Hathaway) storms out of her boy-friend’s apartment since she’s almost late at work and, as soon as she’s on the street she answers the phone and starts a very disturbing sexual conversation with some guy with a Russian name. We later find out she’s been solving her financial issues by being a ‘sex call’ phone girl.

The only “normal” people who are not crazy with the event are Kara Monahan (Jessica Biel), who’s actually organizing a “I hate Valentine’s Day Party”, sportsman Sean Jackson (Eric Dane), Kelvin Moore (Jamie Foxx), a TV sports presenter who’s getting the task of covering the event and Paula Thomas (Queen Latifah).

And then it all goes wrong.

Proposals are rejected, old infidelities are confessed, new infidelities are found, preparations for the perfect sex get to a dead end, flowers are not being delivered on time etc. People break up for moronic reasons, the soon life shows them in love there’s more than bubbly champagne and flowers. And of course, because it’s a comedy in the end, everything sorta comes into place. The movie does offer some twists too, so you cannot really predict everything.

If you look at the cast, maybe you’re gonna have some high expectations, in the end there are some strong names in it. From this point of view the movie might under-deliver. On the other hand this is a comedy and no one claimed it should be more than that. There are enough funny situations to justify some good laughs too.

So, if you’re in for some cute pleasant story, with some good actors and some funny scenes too, you can make the “effort” to watch it. For two hours of entertainment, it surely does the job.