Eat Pray Love
Not so much a movie as it is a two and a half hour endurance test, this release from last year by the more lucky than talented creator of Glee based on a autobiographical book by flash in the pan author Elizabeth Gilbert displays a worldview so twisted that its very existence could be called borderline dangerous. Julia Roberts (long removed from her Pretty Woman salad days) plays a married, affluent author whom, for nothing more than the most purely shallow, selfish reasons, decides to abandon her husband (Billy Crudup), and go on a so-called journey of âself-discoveryâ, first by shacking up with a broke, wayward actor (James Franco) and then by deciding to travel around the world in order to âfind herselfâ (if only we all had the means to do such a thing). First the spoilt wench finds herself in Italy, where she quickly finds a support group of close friends even as every imaginable clichĂ© and stereotype about Italy and Italian people are trotted out for our viewing pleasure, and then itâs off to India, where she escapes the squalor of the streets to find a nice little air-conditioned corner for herself within a commune where she and others sit around worshipping a female guru (or at least a framed photo of her) while being befriended by a Texas reject (Richard Jenkins) who leers at her constantly and annoyingly gives her the unfunny nickname âGroceriesâ (which he calls her ad nauseum) without ever making a legit pass at her, and finally itâs off to Bali, Indonesia, where she can learn about life and spirituality at the knee of a medicine man whose dialogue consists entirely of fortune cookie pearls of wisdom, even as the filmmakers bring in Javier Bardem at the eleventh hour to try to save the movie as the fellow divorcee who finally sweeps Julia off her feet (probably because he has the biggest dick) which leads to Julia acting like a selfish bitch just a little bit longer before she finally decides to sail off with him on his boat and the viewer can thank the angels in Heaven that the movie is actually over. Certainly as a travelogue for the aforementioned countries, this works pretty well with the scenery, and obviously there are some quality actors involved, even though Bardem seems bored and Franco comes off as listless (a growing habit on his part which is a bit disturbing), but the sheer unlikability of the Roberts character permeates nearly every frame of this movie, punctuated by her irritating horse face laughter every time a supporting character does anything remotely amusing. The script features several story developments that have to be seen to be believed, such as when Jenkins tearingly describes how his wife left him and his life fell apart after he ALMOST ran down his own son with his car but the kid got out of the way (as opposed to actually mowing the little tyke down) to when Bardem finally gets around to plugging our heroine (âItâs time.â) only for her to immediately end up in the doctorâs office for a urinary tract infection (guess Javier was packing too much meat) to when she sends out an email to about 4 or 5 friends around the world begging them to send donations to build a house for her Indonesian friend and manages to raise a whopping $18,000!(!) when $1800 would have been a little more realistic in this day and age. In the end, the only morale of the story seems to be that if youâre a spoiled, superficial woman of privilege, you can dump your husband and cruise around the world with no monetary constraints until you finally meet a real man, and then you live happily ever after, and whatâs really frightening is the effect that movies such as this can have on women in real life and perhaps inspire them to take it seriously which in truth will only lead to unhappiness and frustration later in life. In the end, if youâre a guy and your best girl suggests you watch this with her or that this is her favorite movie, run, hide, and never call her again because this may arguably be the absolute worst chick flick ever madeâŠ
2/10