Review of Eat Pray Love (2010) by Johnny T — 01 Nov 2011

If there is one constant in Eat Pray Love, the imperfect yet beautifully rendered adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir on a year of heartbreak and healing starring Julia Roberts. Eat Pray Love finally settles into its own cinematic destiny as an attractive escapist love story, in which the romance is more with the I than with the guy. It lacks the resonances of Gilbert's book. I've got a fourth verb to add to the comma-challenged title of Julia Roberts' how-to-be-happy travelogue, Eat Pray Love. How about "edit"? Eat Pray Love isn't a bad movie -- just a spiritually dead one, wearing and wearying. The film offers an easygoing and generous blend of wish fulfillment, vicarious luxury, wry humor and spiritual uplift, with a star, Julia Roberts, who elicits both envy and empathy..

VERDICT: "Matinée" - (Mixed reaction). These kinds of movies are usually movies that had some good things, but some bad things kept it from being amazing. This rating says to pay matinée prices to see at a theatre, buy an ex-rental or a cheap price of the DVD to own.