Julia Roberts, Billy Crudup, Viola Davis, James Franco, Richard Jenkins, Javier Bardem
Directed by Ryan Murphy
Rated: PG-13
Run Time: 133 mins
Genre: Drama/ Adventure/ Romance/ Spiritual
4 frames out of 5
The basics of life: Eat. Pray. Love.
At least what life should consist of. Based on the best selling book Eat, Pray, Love (based on a true story, btw), Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) can’t understand why she feels this void in her life. She is a writer on assignment in Bali, where she visits a local yogi, Ketut Liyer (Hadi Subiyanto), who prophesizes that she will lose all her money but get it back and she will have 2 marriages in her life, one long, one short.
Liz goes back to New York City, feeling void of all life, is desperate to escape the picture-esq marriage to her husband Stephen (Billy Crudup). It’s not that Liz doesn’t love Billy or that he cheated or anything of that magnitude; it’s just she has outgrown the whole let’s-settle-down-and-play-house-and-have-babies deal. She’s just over it. All of it. Liz separates from Stephen, which sets him into a tail spin , forcing Liz in finding herself in the arms of a new man, David (James Franco).
David and Liz together are soul mates in a different kind of realm. David introduces Liz to mediation and finding spiritual truth and their physical chemistry is off the charts. Like anything that starts hot & heavy, the heat starts to fade and the problems boil to the surface. The relationship has gone cold and Liz needs to escape. She devises this personal journey to find herself by experiencing various forms of the human experience by traveling to places she’s always wanted to go. Liz plots her journey by traveling to Italy, to enjoy all the food, culture and experience of the Italian culture; India to study at with a true guru to find spiritual enlightenment and then return to Bali to study with Ketut all of his spiritual/ancient knowledge and teach him English.
Through her travels she meets new people that help her heal, challenge her world view and help her heal and to hopefully forgive the past to move on to her future.
It really makes a HUGE difference when you have a best-seller book turned into a film to have big stars that can ACT (hint, hint Twilight!). Fans of the memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert will be pleased that the film version stayed pretty true to the book. Julia Roberts does a fantastic job portraying the aforementioned Liz and brings her journey from paper to screen in mesmerizing fashion. For those who have not read the book, it is a great drama that everyone should see because you can relate to in one way or another. Who hasn’t wanted to just escape life to figure things out, travel the world and maybe find love? Who hasn’t had a relationship go through rough times and try to work out the problems? Who hasn’t enjoyed eating out of sheer enjoyment? Although this movie is targeted more towards females, guys will be safe to sit through this one without it getting to mushy and sentimental. This is a story about finding out a life purpose and discovering what makes you happy and seeing how things fit in life.
Things to watch for: Amazing scenery, delicious looking food, good eye candy in Javier Bardem. Outstanding performance in Richard Jenkins.
Who should see this movie: Fans of the book Eat, Pray, Love; Fans of Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem, James Franco and Billy Crudup. People in transition; People that have gone through a divorce; Fans of Glee
See it in the Theater or Rent it on DVD: Either one will work in this case. Read the book if you haven’t, it’s a great book!
2 Responses