What an utter disappointment this supposedly enlightening chick flick turned out to be. After a promising first quarter, Eat Pray Love, based on the best-selling book by Elizabeth Gilbert, becomes just another cloying, annoying and smug globe-trotting drama that could only come from Hollywood. Director Ryan Murphy’s debut feature is laden with the kind of self-help bollocks that only a lunatic Californian (and most self-possessed Singaporeans) would embrace and devour. It also romanticizes other cultures with a less-than-keen eye—this is probably one of the most ridiculous films we’ve seen since Sex and the City 2.
After leaving her possessive husband Stephen (Billy Crudup), a self-obsessed writer Liz (Julia Roberts in another self-obsessed role) meets a hot young actor and yogi David (James Franco) and begins a fall-back relationship that sees her crying on the floor and getting on everyone’s nerves (including her own). So she decides to do what all vacuous middle class types do—venture off into the world hoping to find something “other” in a new culture and country.
From eating pastas and pizzas in Rome to learning meditation in India to getting a hangover in Bali, Liz continues to search for herself and the eternal “truth,” which eventually turns out to be charming Spanish businessman Felipe (a surprisingly bland Javier Bardem) who almost runs her over in his truck. So there you have it—one supposedly life-changing journey through 150 minutes’ worth of celluloid crap.
Eat Pray Love is about as enjoyable as sitting through a friend’s holiday snaps while they yammer on about their experiences and self-fulfillment, like most insecure people do these days anyways. So why watch this film when you can just visit an old friend and hear them yap their pathetic lives away?