By: Lauren Cohen, The Campus Movie Guru (University of Miami)
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It’s a testament to Julia Roberts’ acting that I stayed for the whole two and a half very long hours of her new movie, Eat Pray Love. Eat Pray Love, based on the bestseller and acclaimed memoir, is Elizabeth Gilbert’s true story about how, after realizing she’s lost her zest and “appetite” for life, she decides find both herself and balance in her life by leaving everything behind and going on a year long journey through Italy, India, and Bali. While I still have yet to read the book, its a story that held a lot of interest to me. I wanted to want to live vicariously through Elizabeth; most people have probably at some point had that fantasy of just putting their old life on hold and traveling to new and exciting places, having new life-changing experiences…so at first glance it seems like the perfect movie to go to to temporarily get to live out that fantasy. But after a while, the movie started to drag to the point where I found it impossible to care about anything. More important than the plot or the locations of this story is the growth of our main character. She’s not someone whose instantly likable; in fact, some people might find her to be flaky and selfish, especially if you just look at the hard facts about the character on paper. However, where the movie managed to succeed was with the casting of the always dazzling Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert. Roberts took a character that, played the wrong way, would have come off as whiny and self-important. But Roberts brought a certain vulnerability to the role that made, at least, that one aspect of the story work. Unfortunately, there’s so much that’s misguided in the movie that even her performance cant stop it from drowning.
This is the kind of story that you can tell is trying to be profound…and I think deep down, in its core, it is. The problem is is that the film has so much going on that it comes off as shallow…the depth was there, trying desperately to get out, but in the end was lost in the shuffling from location to location combined with an array of unnecessary scenes. Each segment was just simply too long, and not enough happened during them to warrant the length or hold interest. “Boring” doesn’t seem like the right word to use to describe it…but perhaps “bland” is more fitting. I felt like I was sitting in the theater watching the movie on auto-pilot. Unresponsive. Just taking it all in and waiting for an emotional connection.
As you would expect, the cinematography was stunning. The viewer is treated to lovely shots of Italy (watching Roberts eat the most delectable looking foods will without a doubt make your mouth water), India, and most eye-catching of all, Bali (the most enjoyable of the segments starring the very charming Javier Bardem). But in the end, beautiful shots of exotic places, little moments of humor and a wonderful performance from Julia Roberts isn’t enough to save a movie as long and mashed up as Eat Pray Love. I wanted an escapist film…but towards the middle, I just wanted to escape.
Rating: C-
