Liz Gilbert had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having – a husband, a house and a successful career – yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy, the power of prayer in India and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Bali.
19 Feb Eat Pray Love (2010)
Selfishness
Writing about how bad this movie would be about as boring as the movie. What is so interesting is why.
I don’t know the book; I assume it has some engaging qualities for its target audience. But the quality of the book on which movies are based hardly matters, because the distance from book to movie is so great that anything can happen. What happened here is that Julia Roberts bought the rights and carefully shepherded the project to suit her. This is her statement, her creation.
Things like this fascinate because they represent what the actor thinks about film, storytelling and their specific strengths. So the question is, how could someone go so wrong, someone with resources and (I assume) friends capable of great stories, engaging films? Knowing that failure won‘t just be a loss of time, energy and money, but a public spectacle, a lasting history of ineptness, how could she fail so? We know this was audience tested and adjusted a few times so it started out even worse.
Part of the reason of course is that even very good actors are masters of only a small portion of what makes a film work. So it is a rare actor that can step behind the camera and do well. (I just rewatched ‘Hereafter‘ and have to note the exception.) And, well, Julia is a poor actress. In fact, she is capable of connection only playing women that are combinations of nervous and happy, far from this role. Perhaps she was aware that no filmmakers wanted her in challenging roles, so she had to make her own opportunity and went where she thought she could prove herself.
She is in essentially every scene. It could have worked: the autobiographical author is a nitwit struggling to selfishly join concepts she values but cannot understand. Julia is doing the same. Things like this have worked before in the hands of a clever filmmaker. Alas, we don’t have that here.
You know, Kate Winslet could have turned this into a deep exploration of the emptiness that comes from love when you try too hard. You can see her ‘Hideous Kinky‘ character encircling this. Oh well.
Posted in 2011
Ted’s Evaluation — 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
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