Director: Ryan Murphy
Cast: Julia Roberts, Billy Crudup, Viola Davis, James Franco, Tuva Novotny, Luca Argentero, Richard Jenkins, Javier Bardem
Rating: (M)
To an outsider, Elizabeth Gilbert had it all: a glamorous career as a travel writer, a handsome husband and a lovely home. Yet she found herself unable to feel passionate about any of it.
So she left her marriage, giving her husband all the money, and devised her own one-year retreat, living for a few months in Italy, India and Bali.
After this course of eating, praying and loving, she was once again whole and naturally then wrote a book about it.
Eat Pray Love (Rialto and Hoyts) was a bestseller and one of the many women to whom it spoke was Julia Roberts, who now stars in the movie version.
As an adaptation this is extremely faithful, which is good news for devotees of the book but also makes for a very long film.
I read the book and found Gilbert's American entitlement a barrier to full enjoyment, but with the first-person narrative at least you could see where she was coming from.
The film uses voiceovers to try to gain the same intimacy but she still seems heedlessly wilful, especially in ending her marriage.
As a piece of wish-fulfilment, Eat Pray Love works just fine - just do not expect to cry a river over Elizabeth Gilbert's problems.
Best thing: If the recession has meant a downsizing on the holiday front, this is almost like being there and all for the price of a movie ticket.
Worst thing: Julia Roberts is perfect for this role, even looking a lot like Gilbert, but all those voiceovers relentlessly expose her lack of vocal dexterity. In some of the longer passages she frankly gabbles.
See it with: Someone in a rock-solid relationship. Otherwise you will have a lot of explaining to do to a bewildered partner ditched seemingly out of the blue.
- By Christine Powley
