Eat Pray Love

Running Time: 133 minutes.
Media: Blu-Ray.

I saw this film yesterday on Blu-Ray disc, thinking it would be some soppy love story, and to a degree I was right. I did have to bear in mind that the movie was based on memoirs by Liz Gilbert by the same name, of which I hadn't read, but my partner had... She saw the film with me and said there were a few discrepancies between the book and the film, but these discrepancies are not the focus for this review...

While Julia's portrayal of Gilbert is fantastic, I couldn't help but feel that those who produced it tried too hard to market it as a comedy-drama... While there were a few amusing scenes within the film, the storyline itself gave little of the comedy and more of the drama, which really kinda kicked off towards the end of Gilbert's year long quest for self-discovery throughout Italy, where she stuffs herself with eggplant parmigiana and pappardelle with rabbit ragout; India, where we see her do more arguing with a guy called Richard from Texas than she does attaining inner peace; and Bali, where she tries to find some inner balance within herself regarding having left her previous life, a marriage, and a rebound relationship; and falls in love with a Brazilian guy called Felipe...

Felipe, played by a Spaniard, Javier Bardem, took a fair amount of brunt from reviewers such as myself saying that he was a poor choice because his Portuguese was poor... I'd like to come to the defense of the film here by saying that if they wanted to have Mr. Bardem speaking more Portuguese they would have done so, but from what I saw only a few lines were spoken of the language and more focus was given on the Italian side, where Julia Roberts seemed to excel incredibly well with her incredible accent. Speaking from somebody whose nationality stems partially from Naples, she did an incredibly good job.

I feel that although it is a bit soppy in the end with the "spurned love proclamation and reconciliation" cliché, I still found this a great film... The India part of the film I think fell a little flat... But I feel I may have to ask my better half for the book so that I can read it for greater insight to the film. In the meantime, this film gets four stars.