Eat Pray Love

director: Ryan Murphy
year: 2010
with: Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem, Billy Crudup, James Franco, etc.

story: 32 years old Elizabeth Gilbert, a writer, is unhappy with her life and her marriage and escapes it all by a year long travel. She spends four months in Rome, eating and enjoying life, three months in India finding her spirituality  and ends the year in Bali looking for "balance" of the two.

what I liked: I like Rome, I like food. India fascinates me and Bali looks exciting too. Together with the absolutely stunning looking Javier Bardem this film is certainly visually pleasing.

what I disliked: Well, being nice to look at is a bit meagre for a 133min film.
I started reading the book years ago and found the endless moaning on a very high level and preaching of Mrs Gilbert quite boring. Same with the film.. Our heroine escapes her former life although the motivation stays a bit vague. The life in Italy gets portrayed so stereotypical - great food, hot men, washing lines across the road and arias playing in the background (note: why then the aria of the "Queen of the Night" from Mozart's Zauberfloete and not one of the usual suspects like Verdi or Rossini?!?). Guess India and Bali don't get treated any better - was hard to stay focused.

verdict: If you are not a big Julia Roberts fan (I am not) then forget about it. For me film is just "ok" but can be condensed into "Much ado about nothing"...but Javier Bardem, grrrrrr.