Movie Review : Eat Pray Love

Eat Pray Love (EPL) is another movie adapted from a book (seriously, it's an epidemic now..... run for your life while you still can) by Elizabeth Gilbert . I haven't read the book yet, so I can't really comment about the differences. But all my friends who have read the book say that the book is not so good.

The story is about a successful writer who suddenly realized that she is not ready to settle down in her marriage (then why did you get married in the first place??? Women! *sigh*). So she ended her marriage and accidentally (yeah right) find a cute younger man that she screws likes. However, she still finds herself unhappy and so decided to took 1 year off to travel around the world and "find herself again". She decided that she would spend 4 months in Italy (EAT), 4 months in India (PRAY), and ended the year in Bali (LOVE). 

I have just found out that it is actually based on a true story. However, in real life, the trip was sponsored in return of her writing the book.

OK first of all, before I even begin to review the movie, take a closer look at this sentence : 4 months in Italy, 4 months in India, and ended the year in Bali. Notice anything stupid?? Well, for those of you who flunked geography in school, let me tell you Italy and India are countries, but (surprise surprise!! *rolls eyes*) Bali is NOT a country. It is an island located in the country INDONESIA. Seriously, how stupid can you be? Nevertheless, the movie still generates quite an interest for Bali, and ultimately Indonesia. So I guess it's not that bad. But please... get your facts right next time.

Now, on to the movie..... I think it should be called Eat Sleep Love rather than Eat Pray Love. Or better still, we can just skip the whole middle part and call it Eat Love :P. That way we can save about 30 minutes of movie time (btw the movie is quite long..... 2 hours and 20 minutes... but then again, I think it's kind of hard to document a year of life in 2 hours 20 minutes).

Anyway, the 'pray' part, where she travels to India, is just boring. She went to a kind of monastery where people chants, meditates and try to find their spirituality. Over there she met an old dude from Texas, who is just annoying and rude to everyone, especially her. I don't like this guy at all. Towards the end of her India trip, the old dude started crying and tells his story (why he ended up there blah blah blah). I think it's supposed to be an emotional scene, but sorry I just don't get it. I can't even understand what he's saying, and I almost fell asleep.

Also, the Italy and Bali scenes are beautiful and showcases the beauty of the places. It does make you want to go there someday. But in India, they are showing the dirtiness and crappiness of the places.

OK let's move on to the Bali scenes. Hadi Subiyanto, who plays Ketut Liyer (the 9th generation medicine man who prophesies about Liz's return to bali),  is quite funny and convincing as a medicine man who talks cryptically. But I doubt the audience can really understand what he's saying, especially with his thick Indonesian accent. Christine Hakim, who plays Wayan (Liz's friend while she was in Bali), is great for the role, except for the fact that she's not Balinese. But nobody really cares anyway, especially when they don't know where Bali really is :P

Liz's love interest is played by Javier Bardem (a.k.a Mr. Penelope Cruz). I don't know much about this guy before.... I don't think I have ever seen any of his movies. But suddenly here he is, and he will be guest starring on Glee as well. To be honest, I'm not really impressed by his acting in this movie. 

So, overall I think this movie is pretty to look at (Italy and Bali only, please), but the story doesn't have much depth into it. It's not really a comedy, nor it's a chick flick. Julia Robert shines (as always), but she's the only anchor to the whole movie.