It’s challenging to empathize with Elizabeth Gilbert in this film adaptation of the book “Eat Pray Love,” in which a beautiful, smart and loved woman finds herself unhappy. That’s until we see the first scene in which Gilbert (Julia Roberts)
It’s challenging to empathize with Elizabeth Gilbert in this film adaptation of the book “Eat Pray Love,” in which a beautiful, smart and loved woman finds herself unhappy.
That’s until we see the first scene in which Gilbert (Julia Roberts) prays, a sincere and genuine moment in which she does so with the kind of tears, earnestness and abandon most of us muster up the courage for only a few desperate times in our lives.
She begs God for an answer. Moments later, we see the answer arrive.
Following that, Gilbert goes through the sort of series of events that is cliché for the generic, recently divorced woman: She rebounds, she gets her heart broken, she flees in search of something to remind her of a sense of self.
But watching her do so is pleasant enough, as the scenery and scenes themselves evoke a certain wistful vicariousness for the world traveler within.
First up on her list of places to go is Italy, and it is in Rome where she nourishes a broken heart with plates and plates of delicious- looking plates stacked high with romantic items like figs, prosciutto, and broad, homemade-looking noodles washed down in piazza after piazza with gem-hued Chianti.
Of course while abroad she finds a loyal gaggle of friends who teach her everything from the hand gestures required of a true Roman conversation to how to order an entire menu in unadulterated Italian, to how to find the one word that defines her.
It is in Italy, visiting the Roman ruins that once housed the ashes of Augustus, Rome’s first true great emperor, she realizes one of the film’s decent mottos: “ruin is a gift on the road to transformation.”
Fast forward to India, where the editing was handled well by Director Ryan Murphy, (“Glee”) as there lacks a smooth transition from the Tuscan-like golden fields to the flurry of people and rushed streets of the East, paralleling the stark juxtaposition between the two locales.
Here, Gilbert rushes from the chaos into the hippie-dippie ashram for the sanitized, American experience of another culture.
Though you can’t blame Roberts for that — it is Gilbert’s book that dismisses the rest of India (all that is outside the ashram) as “poverty-”stricken.
Meditating amongst others devoted to the spiritual practice, Gilbert befriends a Texan (Richard Jenkins) also seeking self-forgiveness.
The two share a sugary Indian sort of Coca Cola (Thums Up) and heartwrenching anecdotes before helping each other back on the path to healing.
Perhaps most poignant, however, is the relationship Gilbert builds with a teenage girl she meets scrubbing the floors while at the ashram, who is about to wed in an arranged marriage.
Gilbert does something less selfish than we have seen thus far: she dedicates her prayers (gurugita) to her as a wedding gift, envisioning the girl and her husband happy and kind to each other.
When she tells the girl of this gift, the girl says, gratefully, “perhaps I can believe this as well.”
Following this, it is time for love for Gilbert, in Bali.
Gilbert takes the sojourn to once again find a Balinese medicine man she met on a previous trip.
Upon her arrival, he doesn’t recognize her (she is transformed from her eating in Italy and prayer in India) but finally remembers her.
Gilbert is placidly enjoying her new Balinese surroundings on a cruiser bike when she is nearly struck by a Jeep by Felipe (Javier Bardem).
It’s here that Gilbert surrenders to the sweet, romantic provocations of Felipe, a divorced, heartbroken Brazilian with a penchant for samba dancing.
All that is left for her to do is realize, as the Balinese medicine man put it, that “sometimes losing balance for love is living a balanced life.”
Overall, “Eat Pray Love” is a sweet and lovely film to be enjoyed lightly (like an afternoon gelato) appreciated for its ambiance, scenery and love scenes with Bardem.
