Friday 12 June 2020

Eat Pray Love (2010 Ryan Murphy & co-scr)

Educated, privileged woman needs to travel around the world (Bali, Italy, India, Bali) to 'find herself' - which is a bit of a preposterous idea (though it works in Hector and the Search for Happiness). Apart from this conceptual hurdle, it's an enjoyable - though long - journey (we watched the director's cut, which was five minutes longer - 2,25). I've got to say it's all a bit empty.

Julia Roberts rather unfairly dumps Billy Crudup without much of an explanation, dates actor James Franco without much success, then leaves friends Viola Davis and Mike O'Malley for Firenze, Roma and Napoli (including our old friend L'Antiqua Pizzeria) - quite understandable. She befriends Tuva Novotny and they eat and speak Italian, but then she's enticed to travel to India, for some odd reason, where she meets Richard Jenkins, who in one uninterrupted take tells her of his journey - a stand-out scene - hats off to Jenkins. She meditates, food doesn't look up to much, she doesn't get food poisoning. Then Bali, the delightful guru Hadi Yubiyanto and his ?housekeeper I. Gusti Ayu Puspawati, healer Christine Hakim and father Javier Bardem.

Handsomely photographed by Robert Richardson and scored by Dario Marienelli, with help from Neil Young, samba, opera and plinging.


This, I get.
Maybe I'm just a spiritually bankrupt person.

Co-written with Jennifer Salt; from Elizabeth Gilbert's 2006 novel. Murphy came up with Nip /Tuck, Glee, Scream Queens (with Emma Roberts), Feud and Hollywood.

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