Xavier Bardem wooing Julia Roberts. watch the preview: http://www.moviefone.com/movie/eat-pray-love/27799/main?icid=movsmartsearch
This movie is based on a best-selling memoir I haven't read and not any time soon. My wife read it and wanted to see the movie version so it's only fair we saw it together since I drag her to a lot of films she wasn't sure she would like. I could count on one hand the men in the audience during the Sunday matinee we saw it. Eat Pray Love is a cross between a chick flick and a travelogue but that could be an unfair capsule summary since I did enjoy it.
>>Looking back on it two weeks after we saw it has given me more time to evaluate it. It's a pleasant diversion about a woman (Julia Roberts) who's trying to 'find herself' after a divorce from her nice, handsome, but dull husband (Billy Crudup). Her new relationship with an aspiring younger actor (James Franco) also finds her unsatisfied so she decides to travel the world to find self-fulfillment. Along the way she meets people in three countries who want to help her.
>>The Italian scenes are the best ones, filled with local color and close ups of mouth watering plates of food that will make you hungry before you leave the theater. These warm scenes of local cuisine and camaraderie are contrasted with the starkness of India where she joins an ashram for spiritual enlightenment. Lots of praying & chanting this time. and the food's not as good. Here she meets a well-meaning but cranky American (Richard Jenkins) who badgers her to get over herself but he's no role model since he still carries a lot of emotional baggage that made him flee to India.
>>Julia's final journey ends in Bali where she meets a shaman (imagine a real life Yoda in attitude & size) and a woman healer who offer more advice and teach her to think about helping others than helping herself. She has the chance to find real love with Xavier Bardem playing a divorced Brazilian businessman. He's what every woman would want but poor Julia can't decide if finding real love instead of finding herself is the answer... as if you need to be a rocket scientist to decide... The only suspense, for a lack of a better word, in the film is will she make the right choice. You want to scream at the screen and say 'Enough of this! Get over yourself and marry him!'
>>This is a mildly amusing film with nice scenery and the humor is low keyed but hearing Julia talk about finding herself over & over and everyone giving her advice whether she wants it or not was a bit tiresome, and it made its length of 2 hours & 11 minutes seem longer. Her character is not a bad person, only too hard on herself . She does help the shaman and healer but she's almost one note to the point of boring as the other characters and native scenery become more interesting as the film plods along.
>>Eat Pray Love will induce a craving for Italian food but not for self-fulfillment. On a different note, our parish priest during last week's sermon thought it was almost blasphemous for Julia's character to move away from her Christian religion to try other ones in search of God. That's a topic for another discussion and probably more interesting than the film.
>>Looking back on it two weeks after we saw it has given me more time to evaluate it. It's a pleasant diversion about a woman (Julia Roberts) who's trying to 'find herself' after a divorce from her nice, handsome, but dull husband (Billy Crudup). Her new relationship with an aspiring younger actor (James Franco) also finds her unsatisfied so she decides to travel the world to find self-fulfillment. Along the way she meets people in three countries who want to help her.
>>The Italian scenes are the best ones, filled with local color and close ups of mouth watering plates of food that will make you hungry before you leave the theater. These warm scenes of local cuisine and camaraderie are contrasted with the starkness of India where she joins an ashram for spiritual enlightenment. Lots of praying & chanting this time. and the food's not as good. Here she meets a well-meaning but cranky American (Richard Jenkins) who badgers her to get over herself but he's no role model since he still carries a lot of emotional baggage that made him flee to India.
>>Julia's final journey ends in Bali where she meets a shaman (imagine a real life Yoda in attitude & size) and a woman healer who offer more advice and teach her to think about helping others than helping herself. She has the chance to find real love with Xavier Bardem playing a divorced Brazilian businessman. He's what every woman would want but poor Julia can't decide if finding real love instead of finding herself is the answer... as if you need to be a rocket scientist to decide... The only suspense, for a lack of a better word, in the film is will she make the right choice. You want to scream at the screen and say 'Enough of this! Get over yourself and marry him!'
>>This is a mildly amusing film with nice scenery and the humor is low keyed but hearing Julia talk about finding herself over & over and everyone giving her advice whether she wants it or not was a bit tiresome, and it made its length of 2 hours & 11 minutes seem longer. Her character is not a bad person, only too hard on herself . She does help the shaman and healer but she's almost one note to the point of boring as the other characters and native scenery become more interesting as the film plods along.
>>Eat Pray Love will induce a craving for Italian food but not for self-fulfillment. On a different note, our parish priest during last week's sermon thought it was almost blasphemous for Julia's character to move away from her Christian religion to try other ones in search of God. That's a topic for another discussion and probably more interesting than the film.
