Review: 'Eat Pray Love' is a stodgy spiritual sojourn

Eat Pray Love (U/A)
Director: Ryan Murphy
Cast: Julia Roberts, Billy Crudup, James Franco and others
Rating: **1/2


As Hollywood queen Julia Roberts’s comeback vehicle, Eat Pray Love is a total letdown, not only because the film reeks of insipid reflective content, but also because it fails to generate any kind of thrill in you. The dialogues almost remind you of the insightful ‘How to’ books that you come across occasionally but toss away owing to the mind-numbing subject matter.

The film is the story of the midlife crisis faced by Elizabeth Gilbert (Roberts), who is basically an unhappy woman, sans any real passion in life. After a bitter divorce, she leaves America for a year on a mission to 'seek herself’.

The places she visits — Italy, India and Bali — each teach her the essence of life as enshrined in eating well to enjoy the niceties of life, meditating to gain spiritual solace, and loving without losing yourself (respectively).
Roberts is unquestionably the heart of the film; other characters that she encounters on her journey come and go. She offers a ravishing performance, no doubt, but it hardly makes a difference to the dreary plot of the film.

At most points, you can’t even relate to her character because of the film’s obscure philosophical content. Though it begins on a totally disengaging note, the film picks up well towards the climax when Gilbert believes she has been ‘healed’ because she has now found the love of her life without losing the ‘balance’.

Throughout the film, you catch glimpses of the cosmopolitan world — the pasta-loving folks of Italy, the densely inhabited gullies of India, and the therapeutic splendour of Bali. Yet, in the absence of a strong storyline, you find it impossible to engage all your senses on the screen.

The film’s music, on the other hand, is superb and blows you away at most times. It is a perfect pick for the kind of subject matter involved — truth-seeking and abstract.