Movie Review: "Eat, Pray, Love"

As much as I wanted to like it, I found "Eat, Pray, Love" to be a pointless movie with a deceptively bad message.

Julia Roberts portrays the writer Elizabeth Gilbert, who ended a dissatisfying marriage and a subsequent rebound relationship with a younger man to live briefly in three countrries over the course of one year in an effort to 'find herself.' The three countries (all beautiful) were Italy, India, and Bali.

In Italy she focused on her physical need for food ("eat"); in India she lived in the ashram of an absent guru ("pray"); and in Bali she succombed to the advances of a wealthy Brazilian ("love") while valuing the advice of a charleton wiseman. That's the story line.

The acting was good, the scenery was nice...so what's not to like?

The main character (not Julia Roberts, but Elizabeth Gilbert).

I did not find Gilbert to be a sympathetic main character I could cheer for. She got off on the wrong foot with me by rejecting her husband of seven years for no apparent reason, despite his protestations. She had simply become bored with him and with married life in general and wanted out. Oh, sure, she is wracked with guilt about it for fleeting moments here and there, but finding herself is a much more important quest than rekindling their love. We, the viewers, are supposed to understand and champion her voyage of self-discovery.

When she decides to leave him, she kneels in prayer and tells God that though she has never prayed before she hopes he [God] knows of her 'ample gratitude.' Bingo! That is exactly what she lacks -- she has no appreciation for her life.

She thinks she will discover herself on the other side of the world, but if she were a quote collector she would know this famous thought from Emerson:

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

But the quote that fits most perfectly with my reaction to the movie is from Horace Mann. I especially LOVE the first line:

In vain do they talk of happiness who never subdued an impulse in obedience to a principle. He who never sacrificed a present to a future good, or a personal to a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind speak of color.