See for Yourself
Eat, Pray Love
Cast: Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem, Viola Davis, Richard Jenkins, James Franco, Billy Crudup
Director: Ryan Murphy
Running time: 2 hours 16 minutes
Eat Pray Love isn’t a bad movie — just a spiritually dead one, wearing and wearying. The cute supporting cast (Viola Davis is the wise-cracking best friend) tosses off cute one-liners and Roberts smiles broadly and tries to pretend the journey she takes isn’t rendered hilariously pointless by the finale.
It is a much better movie, one hour in, when Jenkins shows up. His character’s no-nonsense bluntness, labeling the indulgent Liz “Groceries” because here she is in a spartan spiritual retreat in the middle of India and all she does is eat, and his vulnerability, suggest a deeper but still amusing movie that might have been.
For a film about a woman whose motto is “I’m through with the guilt,” Roberts and Murphy & Co. have delivered a guilty pleasure. It’s great to see her in something this light again, looking much as she did ten years ago. Eat Pray Love allows Roberts’ longtime fans to travel the world, and back in time with her. If only we all could eat until we pop and age in reverse and still have the glow of amber backlighting.