Step 1: Yawn. While Eat Pray Love has some enlightening, touching, visually breathtaking moments, you still end up praying it would end.
Step 2: Eat. The film is based on the hugely popular real-life travel diary by Elizabeth Gilbert, a divorced, depressed writer/journalist who took a year off to travel around the globe in hopes of finding some kind of meaning to her life. Yeah, not the most exciting subject for a movie, but casting Julia Roberts in the role at least adds some weight. We start with the Eat part. In the first leg of the trip, Roberts as Gilbert jets to Rome to live, breath and yes, eat, the Italian culture. And eat. And eat some more. It’s definitely the best part of the movie, only because it’s great to see a woman consume such great looking food with abandon. But at some point, you realize you’ve been watching the movie for over an hour and yet, she’s still in Italy. There’s two more countries to go, for chrissakes. That’s when the boredom starts to set in.
Step 3: Pray. Gilbert visits an ashram in India to find peace and tranquility – except she can’t quit fidgeting and thinking about all manner of things. Plus, it’s really hot and the food isn’t all that good. If I were her, at some point I’d say screw it and go back to Rome. Alas, she sticks it out, meeting a fellow troubled American (Richard Jenkins), who helps her to become enlightened. Ho hum.
Step 4: Love. And what a beautiful place to fall into it. The scenes in Bali are spectacular, as you can imagine, and so is gazing at the hunky, if slightly miscast, Javier Bardem, who plays Gilbert’s new love interest Felipe. Problem is, the two of them have zero chemistry, which sort of dampens things. Gilbert had more zing with that gorgeous plate of spaghetti. Like I said, GO BACK TO ITALY.
Step 5: Act. Roberts could possibly be nominated for an Oscar, depending on how well the film does at the box office (that’s a gamble) and whether they’ll be more than five more great performances by women in the next five months (kinda doubtful). In other words, Roberts could get a nod by default, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. You can’t really blame Eat Pray Love‘s tedium on her performance. She does her very best to carry the movie on her capable shoulders, but her character is, well, kind of irritating. You’re never quite sure why she’s so unhappy, just that she is, or why she whines so much, just that she does. Jenkins might be the only other performance worthy of a nod, as the former alcoholic from Texas who finds his inner whatever it is and whips Gilbert into shape.
Step 6: Read. You can’t entirely blame co-writer/director Ryan Murphy, of Nip/Tuck and Glee fame, either. I’m pretty sure the source material was difficult to translate, especially when you want to please the fans of the book while still making a compelling movie. But maybe Eat Pray Love should have just stayed on the page, so readers can put the book down, maybe fly to Naples for a slice of pizza, maybe ride an elephant in India and then pick it up to read a little later. Maybe on a beach in Bali.
Level of difficulty in watching Eat Pray Love: Kinda hard — to keep your eyes open.