"Eat, Pray, Love" opens with the 30-40-something Elizabeth Gilbert (Julia Roberts) learning from a Balinese medicine man that she would be in two marriages, one long and one short, that she would lose all of her money but she would gain it back, and that she would return to Bali and live there for months.
Gilbert thanks him for his time and returns to her life as a writer in New York, not knowing that his predictions would come true.
Based on the memoir by the same name, "Eat, Pray, Love" details Gilbert's realization that she has been living a life defined by the men she has fallen in love with and that a divorce and a year-long trip to Italy, India, and Bali is just what she needs to find herself and rediscover her passion for life.
We've seen this movie before: it was called "Under the Tuscan Sun."
While "Eat, Pray, Love" has a hipper soundtrack, a stronger leading actor, and three intriguing countries instead of just one, "Eat, Pray, Love" still manages to be the poorer man's version and repeats the same idea that one woman must reinvent her life after the heartbreak of divorce in order to maintain her sanity but does so less effectively, and with smaller amounts of gelato.
While at times the film feels like it lasts for the entire year, dragging every time Gilbert breaks down crying over the husband she ruthlessly dumped but remains nostalgic for, the film also chops up the character's experiences into what feels like equally sliced cubes.
We get to know a couple of her friends, old and new, but there is very little time for character development before she is off to her next country. Her friends are props for her self discovery and do not have the same organic interactions as the friendships cultivated in "Under the Tuscan Sun."
Additionally, the life lessons learned in this movie are cliches. At one point Gilbert asks, frustrated with a new friend: "Do you always speak in Bumper Sticker?" Yes, he does, and so does everyone else in this film.
"Eat, Pray, Love" caters to a very specific audience: fans of the book looking to see itscinematic realization and perhaps women who have gone through the hardships of divorce themselves, but while Julia Roberts' acting glitters as usual, it is hard to find other reasons to fall in love with this film when it has already been executed more effectively before.
In the end, the audience is left with its popcorn and, perhaps its prayer, that the credits will roll soon.
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