MOVIE: EAT PRAY LOVE

One identity crisis and a divorce later, successful New Yorker Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) embarks on a one year odyssey to Italy, India and Bali, in order to eat, pray, and love, respectively. Peppered with trite psychobabble about self-love and ‘finding yourself’, Liz’s emotional plight is poorly articulated and Roberts angsts her way through the film without the audience ever quite figuring out what her problem is.  Although Roberts turns on the famous charm, the script has Liz come across as self-centered and often unlikeable, particularly when ruminating on romantic dilemmas amidst poverty in India. Secluded in an Ashram that smacks of a glorified, high-priced retreat aimed at westerners, shots of Roberts humming, “Om” substitute actual spiritual development, while interaction with locals and culture is kept to a minimum. While the story picks up with the introduction of Javier Bardem as the smouldering love interest in Bali, the film clumsily forces dramatic tension by having Liz reject his sincere advances with a plethora of self-help mantras, awkwardly shouting, “I don’t have to love you to love myself!” Gorgeous visuals and the occasional cross-cultural joke aside, Eat Pray Love is an overindulgent travelogue propped up by a few good performances, highly photogenic locations and some thoroughly appetising food montages. (LR)