Eat Pray Love

Ryan Murphy, the current king of television thanks to Glee, and past butcher of film adaptations with Running with Scissors, directs Elizabeth Gilbert's bestselling memoir-travelogue about a forty-something woman going on a globe-trotting adventure to do some serious soul searching.  Eat Pray Love, the chick-lite movie star vehicle for Julia Roberts, is a shallow, overly long feature with an overly diagrammed format.  Roberts plays Liz, who after a messy divorce packs her bags to eat heartily in Italy, pray peacefully in India, and find romance in Bali.  It serves its purpose, I suppose, as wish-fulfillment porn for middle aged women.  Ones of course who can afford a year-long vacation around the world.  The proceedings go down as pleasantly as, I suppose, they could have thanks to easy to swallow radiance of Ms. Roberts and luscious postcard worthy photography by Robert Richardson (JFK, Inglourious Basterds, The Aviator.)  What the film lacks is a hard hitting emotional maturity to fully ground Liz.  It's that kind of film that wants to be light, yet still make you cry, and as such loses sight on both ends.

The action start in New York where we meet Liz, unhappily married to Stephen (Billy Crudup), whose fault is that he's a bit flakey, and considers grad school.  The reason behind Liz's unhappiness is never fleshed out, and it wouldn't so much matter if the movie didn't spend so much time with him.  We just know she's unhappy.  After separating Liz meets young hippie actor David (James Franco), an acceptable rebound choice given age and appearance.  They both fall for each other, yet she's still unhappy.  Feeling fragile and disconnected from herself and a higher form, Liz sets out on her year-long quest.

Starting in Italy, there's the obligatory shout out to all that enjoy good food, even if it's fattening, and a few too many montages showing pretty scenery, but there's Roberts, ever bit the movie star, whether enjoying her gelato, and learning the language from an attractive tutor.  There's her trademark smile and laugh, albeit a bit subdued, and for a long while, there's a pleasant wistfulness to Eat Pray Love, rested solely on her movie star shoulders.  There's a pleasure, and perhaps even an unexpected grace to watching Roberts, the movie star, more so nowadays since she's not nearly as ubiquitous.  And just like last years underrated caper flick Duplicity, there's a natural attraction to watching her; her charm alone nearly gets away with the two-and-a-half hours of Eat Pray Love.  Nearly, not quite.

There's two more men that rattle Liz before the predictable conclusion.  The first of which is in India.  As another American in search of himself, Liz meets Richard from Texas (played by the great Richard Jenkins.)  It's the first man in the film who doesn't initially fall in love with her, and the first to challenge her.  He's a guy with baggage, and like Liz is searching for love of oneself, but also forgiveness; at this point even Liz feels she treated Stephen wrong.  It's a testament to Jenkins' tremendous talent that his character works at all.  With dialogue that's full of self-help platitudes and all too familiar monologue of past hurt, he brings a dignity to the role when little of it was expected, or needed for that matter-- remember this is supposed to a light, summer escapist flick.  For the record, the isn't the first time Jenkins has managed such grand theft in the movie, or made a film infinitely better and far more watchable nearly on presence alone-- watch the otherwise dreadful North Country for that.

The second life changing man is Felipe (Javier Bardem), a Brazilian transplant living in Bali with grown Australian children.  He's the suave charming man of Liz's unfulfilled dreams, and if the film didn't feel so programed there might actually be some tension between to two.  They meet cute-- as all would-be lovers in movies do-- she's bicycling around when his car hits her.  Bardem can play this part in his sleep, he's semi-coasting on the same road he did in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but the actors comes with him an impeccable sense of humor, international sexiness, and an age-appropriate love interest for Roberts, with whom he shares a nice on-screen rapport with.

I fully acknowledge that a twenty-something male is not exactly the target demographic, and having not read the book itself, I cannot judge the book to screen process.  I hope the book comes across as a fuller and emotionally stronger and not as rich girl goes exploring treatise.  That being said, there's enough in Eat Pray Love that makes me at least think it the film will be a nice guilty pleasure for the audience that enjoyed Julia & Julia and Mamma Mia!, and perhaps even the younger girl smitten by the Nicholas Sparks crap.  What I saw here was a 2 1\2 hour postcard with dialogue that felt like a pastiche from bumper stickers.  But then again my own bitterness is still warmed by the effervescent smile of Julia Roberts.  C+