It’s a memoir, and Gilbert does a fabulous job setting her personal transformation in scenes around the world. I never understand the criticisms that this is too self-absorbed for travel writing. The prose was heartfelt (albeit whiny at times), Gilbert went to great lengths to blame herself for her marriage’s failure without resorting to indulgent platitudes about why it didn’t work and she reiterated throughout the book that this was her journey, not a “how to” for disaffected women. Gilbert’s “ Eat, Pray, Love” was an enjoyable deeply personal memoir. As someone who enjoyed the Eat, Pray, Love book She regains strength through food by eating her way through Italy, hones her meditation practice and ability to focus while at an ashram in India and, while seeking balance between the eating and the praying, she inadvertently falls in love in Bali. I’m a woman that traveled the world solo for many years (including to the many of the locations in the film,) and after finally watching “Eat, Pray, Love” I’ve come to the conclusion that it failed to deliver.įrom the official synopsis, which claims the film “proves that there really is more than one way to let yourself go and see the world,” to the choice of Julia Roberts as its star, Sony Pictures built up expectations - and then failed to deliver for those who enjoyed the book, for women and for travellers.įor those unfamiliar with the story, it can be summarized thus: unhappy with her marriage and path in life, Elizabeth Gilbert decides to walk away from both and embark on a journey of self-discovery in three separate (and very different) countries.
#EAT PRAY LOVE FOR FREE MOVIE#
She - and the movie - would have been better off letting the world speak for itself.This summer’s movie adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller “ Eat, Pray, Love” made some grandiose promises. Much as Eat Pray Love is about letting go, Liz's habit of imposing pop-psychological significance on every encounter suggests she's still her controlling self. At her worst, she's like a narcissistic tour guide who invites sightseers to marvel at the spectacular vistas and cascading waters inside her own head. Trouble is, we're still stuck with Liz, who never passes up the chance to process her encounters into Oprah-fied nuggets of wisdom. In the film's travel-brochure paradise, they make for agreeable companions. She also encounters a few fascinating seekers in her travels, including a prickly old Texan (Richard Jenkins), whom she befriends at an Indian ashram and a Brazilian businessman in Indonesia, played by Javier Bardem at his most devastatingly suave. Well, as a sensual experience, Eat Pray Love falls squarely in the tradition of other femme-centered cinematic staycations, like Enchanted April or Under the Tuscan Sun, and certainly it's transporting to watch Roberts consume pizza in Naples or drift along crystalline currents off the coast of Bali. Love, Indonesian Style: While trying to recover after a messy divorce, Liz (Julia Roberts) meets Felipe (Javier Bardem), a Brazilian architect, in Bali. That's the essence of a true vacation, and she has to work hard for it. As played by a sun-kissed Julia Roberts, Liz has undertaken this adventure partly to open up to new experiences and loosen the vise-grip she's previously maintained over every aspect of her life, and the little tension that surfaces in her journey is owed to the push and pull between her itinerary - as defined by the book pitch (and advance money) that made it all possible - and her desire to feel truly unmoored and liberated. Though Eat Pray Love never loses the sour whiff of unexamined first-world privilege, its heroine does at least immerse herself in different cultures rather than expecting them to adapt to her. Therein lies the premise and the problem with Eat, Pray, Love, at least in its frustrating (and comma-free) screen incarnation: The world exists as a kind of sprawling, full-service spa treatment for the soul, neatly compartmentalized to nourish the senses, the spirit and the heart. "I wanted to explore the art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India, and in Indonesia, the art of balancing the two." "I wanted to explore one aspect of myself set against the backdrop of each country, in a place that has traditionally done that one thing very well," writes Elizabeth Gilbert in her popular memoir Eat, Pray, Love.