Eat Pray Love - Alienate Confuse Annoy

Director Ryan Murphy has experienced a commendable degree of success. From his hit show Nip/Tuck to the hugely popular TV show (love it or hate it) Glee, he has brought out the best in his actors whether high profile or complete unknowns. Sadly, despite enjoying an eye catching cast: Julia Roberts, Billy Crudup, James Franco and Javier Bardem, his most recent film Eat Pray Love is unforgivably disappointing. You know something is wrong when two hours suddenly feels like four.

Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) has it all, a beautiful house, a loving husband and a successful career. Everything a modern woman could want or dream of having right? Unfortunately for Liz something is missing or at least doesn’t feel quite right. Increasingly feeling unfulfilled and falling out of love with her husband Stephen (Billy Crudup) she consequently files for a divorce. The experience of this heartbreaking separation overwhelms Liz however, and so decides to take a round-the-world trip, first to Italy, India and lastly Bali, in search for some inner peace and a chance to reflect on her life as a whole.

On the one hand Eat Pray Love quite literally achieves what it sets out to do. Liz discovers a real appetite for Italian food, is forced to confront her inner demons through the power of prayer during her stay in India and does eventually find ‘true love’ in Bali, which subsequently completes her journey of self discovery- a seemingly well polished, albeit slightly predictable, happy ending one would expect from a romantic comedy.

But don’t be fooled.

Liz may travel the world that resembles our own but in reality her world simply does not exist. From the places she visits to the friends that she meets on the way, everything seems a little too easy? With regards to the round-the-world trip Liz undertakes one assumes that she will gain a new appreciation of her lavish lifestyle back home which she has taken for granted, in particular regards to the economic downturn and political unrest in the world. None of this is addressed, instead it is a travelogue that is so narcissistic and full of self pitying, one really struggles to relate to Liz and by the end of the film one no longer cares to.

Perhaps the overriding problem is how the film initially begins, whereby Liz falls out of love with her husband too quickly for the audience to sympathize with Liz’s position. Instead, the audience is left just as confused as Stephen as to what exactly made Liz suddenly so dissatisfied with a life that she had chosen but on a whim chose to leave behind? Essentially, the audience is lost before the journey has even begun and nothing in the film adequately addresses what could be dubbed as a nagging plot hole in the script.

Notable performances from all the actors involved but their efforts are not enough to save a film that is flawed on so many levels. The film is very picturesque and is stylistically filmed but there is little substance to match what is being viewed.

Eat Pray Love is a film that is both incredibly shallow and so unrealistic that the audience is left feeling alienated, confused and a bit annoyed.

JC