Review: Eat Pray Love

Review: Eat Pray Love

Rating: **

Nonna's Rating: $

Rotten Tomatoes: 39%

It's not horrible. It's not great.

And, it is most definitely a chick flick. Julia Roberts plays Liz Gilbert, a woman who walks away from her marriage and then walks away from a relationship with a younger man (James Franco -- who would walk away from that!) in order to find herself. I realize that by using those last two words in my previous sentence, I've trivialized Liz's experience, but, honestly, I have to. Liz is a woman who leads a privileged life -- and whines about it. She travels to Rome (to eat), to India (to pray), and to Bali (to love). In Bali (not giving away much here), she finally learns that she must move outside her solipsistic world and give of herself trusting fully, no strings attached. Not exactly a profound or unusual insight, but it works.

As always, Julia is endearing. And there are excellent performances by Javier Bardem, Billy Crudup, Viola Davis, James Franco, and the always surprising and compelling Richard Jenkins. It's just that when all is said and done, the story seems very superficial -- easy spirituality in a summer of mediocre movies.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it