Eat, Pray, Love is an adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir starring Julia Roberts as the author. It is also the only time that Ryan Murphy, who is better known for his television shows such as Glee, Scream Queens and American Horror Story, directed a theatrically released feature film, which I did not realize until after I watched the movie. I am not planning on reading the book though it has its attractions: a nice cover, travel and self-discovery. Gilbert eats in Italy, prays in India and finds love (sort of if you know what happened after the movie ends) in Bali.
I actually like Julia Roberts, but I love Javier Bardem so while I knew there was a danger that I may grow to hate Gilbert’s story of emerging from the misery of good fortune, Bardem was enough of a draw to keep me invested until the end. The movie is utterly forgettable except for a few wonderfully edited compare and contrast montages that juxtapose her past with her present such as the divorce dinner sequence or parallel weddings past and present, especially the wedding dance, which imbues the past with more bittersweet significance than the characters are aware of at the time because they do not know what the future holds.
If Eat, Pray, Love has a problem, it is an amoral narcissism that obliviously plagues the character. All the countries and people exist to revolve around her and help her grow. They do not exist except in relation to her and in order to make her life better. It is tourism introspection and kind of disgusting. It genuinely never seems to occur to the character that people are not constantly thinking of her, interested in her or charmed by her even when they explicitly do not remember her. There is one character in the film who is aggressively unamused by her journey and wordlessly pegs Gilbert’s fetishization of her life, her friends and her neighborhood as the toxic crap that should be avoided. Her looks are the silent condemnation that I felt for the protagonist.
Looking at the cast and character names tell you everything that you need to know about Eat, Pray, Love’s lack of texture and nuance. The characters have such interesting names as Chant Leader, Chant Leader, Chant Leader, and don’t forget Chant Leader’s scene with Chant Leader and the side of Chant Leader. Liz’s Bag Holder seemed like a particularly powerful role only to be rivaled by Arguing Fruit Customer, Clothing Store Salesgirl or Balinese Realtor. I am not saying that other movies do not have extras, but the majority of the cast is nameless, anonymous, a place holder of function and usefulness.
Roberts should be able to pull it off, but it is as if the star’s personal life is finally too much at the forefront to pull her usual schtick of a helpless innocent buffeted by epiphanies and forced to be true to her heart and self so you cannot accuse her of being a horrible person even if people get hurt and on some objective level, she is kind of horrible. It is the classic have your cake and eat it too scenario. Do what you want, but also be aware that if I am a guy’s friend, I’m going to beg him to steer clear of you because you are not capable of commitment, which is fine if you are aware of your inability, not so great if you are not self-aware and are still making them. By Gilbert’s own account, she was a horrible playwright then fails up by getting to travel to countries lightly skimming the surface like a smooth stone while getting the most credit for simply being there. It annoyed me that we never found out in the movie how she bankrolled the trip. When did the ability to buy a plane ticket become a sign of depth of character? Eat, Pray, Love is blissfully ignorant that this protagonist is off putting because no one behind the scenes is capable of seeing this character’s obvious flaws. When she goes to India to find enlightenment (that is so 1960s), she is visibly annoyed that she has to clean, or that she is not immediately getting a gold star in meditation. Have no fear-by the end, she becomes the best meditator, the most enlightened…which is why she goes to Bali, still a hot mess.
You know that a movie is somewhat off when Eat, Pray, Love features James Franco as a love interest, and it took me awhile to realize that he is not playing himself, but allegedly playing a character. Even though the movie is based on a true story, it is too overstuffed with famous actors and is such a ridiculously privileged story that would shock even Christian Lander, it feels as if it has veered into unbelievable fictional territory. It is aggressively shallow, two-dimensional, and if I am recalling correctly, actually starts with the protagonist in a white savior role. After I watched the movie, I was surprised to discover how much native Italians despised the movie. The movie even managed to tick off Brazilians-um, Bardem was supposed to be playing a Brazilian character, and apparently his Portuguese is awful. Oops. I did not notice, y’all.
Eat, Pray, Love does have some integrity in realism. If Bardem almost accidentally hit me with his car while listening to amazing music, I would not be mad if he then became interested in me; however Bardem is not the best part of the film. Great character actor and American treasure Richard Jenkins tucks the movie under his arm and walks away with it as a Texan who decides that his purpose in life is to mess with the protagonist. He punctures the self-satisfied atmosphere of the film and brings it down to earth even if his character did basically run away from actually solving the problems that haunted him, but he still has pathos in his imperfection. I briefly got excited when I saw Viola Davis. Her character is paired with Mike O’Malley as her husband, but their characters ultimately go nowhere. Oh well.
Maybe I was not into Eat, Pray, Love because I saw it just when I realized that the global pandemic was coming. Italy already succumbed and was shouting warnings to US over the ocean. Seeing this film should have resonated more instead of ringing hollow as a hallmark to a vibrant country. A good movie makes you wistful and appreciate the time capsule nature of film. Instead it felt like an insult, a missed opportunity to capture the uniqueness of the rhythms of each country, a confusion between the quality and intimacy of knowing a foreign country and beginning to feel at home with the quantity of time spent there.
Eat, Pray, Love should have found a way to convey to the viewer the uniquely special characters of each country as if it was a character instead of a backdrop. Reality television shows such as any Anthony Bourdain series or The Amazing Race do a better job in less time. By the end of each episode, I want to go. After this movie, I just went to sleep.