An Elizabeth Gilbert fan discusses Eat, Pray, Love the Movie

I have my own theory about film adaptations of New York Times bestsellers – if you liked the movie, there’s a good chance you’d love the book, but if you’re enamored of the book, you’ll probably feel disappointed about the movie!

In the case of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert’s monstrous literary and commercial success, I’d already prepared myself to be disappointed. It’s difficult to imagine a movie script clever, yet succinct enough, to encapsulate the story of a bad marriage, subsequent divorce, post-divorce fling, search for enlightenment across three countries, happy ending with the main character regaining equilibrium, love and happiness… in the span of a non-epic flick. At least in the book you can afford a lot of rambling narratives, which Gilbert took advantage of, to delicious perfection.

First, the superficial… I discovered that I’ve fallen victim to the retouch culture! In many scenes I found myself paying more attention to Julia Robert’s now less-than-perfect skin tone, noticeable crow’s feet, and uneven lips, than to her acting. Call me politically incorrect, but I don’t think motherhood agrees with Roberts. She's taken a break from her career to raise a family, God bless her, but honestly, the break did nothing for her looks. Even with the magic of movie makeup and lighting, Roberts managed to look... (dare I say it?) borderline dowdy in enough scenes for me to start doubting her longevity in maintaining her perch as America’s sweetheart.

I thought Roberts was a great choice to play Elizabeth Gilbert look-wise, but it was quite a stretch to imagine Bardem as Felipe, the Brazilian expat Gilbert met and fell in love with in Bali (his real-life name is José Nunes, by the way). Bardem was simply not believable in the role of the older gent who won the author’s mending heart through patience, chivalry and an occasional aptly-expressed romantic sentiment. He was too ruggedly and broodingly handsome to be ignored by a distracted Roberts at the onset of their acquaintance. His good looks also worked against him in his portrayal of the dorky father to his college-age son. The open affection between the pair seemed forced, as if someone (either the screenwriter or the director) had single-mindedly determined that to be deserving of the writer’s love, Bardem’s character had to prove himself an exemplary single dad. Too little time was devoted to giving a sense of how their romance unfolded, and I couldn’t see the chemistry between these two stars at all. In contrast, the love story between Gilbert and Nunes was honest and credible as described in the book, and not just because Gilbert was a masterful writer.

I almost laughed out loud in the theater when Bardem, with his thick, supposedly Brazilian accent, confronted a wavering Roberts, “Do you love me, or do you love me not?”  Priceless moment!

Elizabeth Gilbert and José Nunes on their wedding day.  In a twist of fate, they were "sentenced to wed", as Gilbert put it, by The Department of Homeland Security!

Javier Bardem's publicity still for Eat, Pray, Love the Movie

James Franco and Julia Roberts on the set of Eat, Pray, Love (Franco played Gilbert's rebound boyfriend in the film)

Similarly, someone was trying too hard to paint Gilbert’s ex-husband, Michael Cooper, as an extremely unlikable chap. In the movie, Billy Crudup portrayed Cooper as pretty much a loon. If the ex really was that unbearable, how could Gilbert be so broken up with guilt over her failed marriage that she could only imagine herself free after being "released" by him atop the ashram in India?

Eat, Pray, Dumped by Danielle Friedman:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-19/elizabeth-gilbert-ex-husband-michael-cooper-profile/

As someone who’s been described as “linear”, I found it impossible to make sense of Gilbert’s break-ups as transcribed in the movie. I wondered what viewer could have sympathy for a woman who left one man after another for seemingly no well-defined reasons. In the book, Gilbert squarely placed the blame on herself for ruining her post-divorce fling, famously describing herself as “a cross between a golden retriever and a barnacle” and openly admitting that her neediness was wrecking havoc on her new relationship. In the movie, however, you see Gilbert blithely sailing away from her men with nary a goodbye.

The divorce theme has been exhaustively explored by many a writer, but none as convincingly personal as Gilbert. Her book was served with a hefty dose of transformative angst that gave reason for more than a few critics to label it “self-absorbed.” To me, that transformative angst was a huge part of the book’s charm and honesty. This charm, however, was lost in translation to the film version. Eat, Pray, Love the Movie turned out to be just another chick flick – even less inspiring than its precursor, Under the Tuscan Sun. Diane Lane, by the way, appeared as a more winsome divorcee than Julia Roberts, even with very little makeup, in my humble opinion.

Among the minor cast, Ketut Liyer, the primarily toothless Balinese holy man who advised Gilbert to "smile with your liver," shined, both in the book and the movie.  For some reason I also loved his controlling and humorless wife!  Wayan, the single-mom herbal healer, was less of a sympathetic character than I would've imagined.  The movie conveniently skipped over the fact that in real life, she tried to milk more money out of Gilbert after the latter had turned over her personal email collection plate amounting to $18,000, which provided her financially-strapped divorced friend with a new home, and that Nunes had to finally intervene in order to open Gilbert's eyes to Wayan's manipulation.

That didn't stop curious and copycat travelers alike to flock to Wayan's and Ketut's shops and made them celebrities in their own neighborhoods!

http://ezinearticles.com/?Meeting-Wayan-From-Elizabeth-Gilberts-Eat,-Pray,-Love&id=3627649

http://www.thestar.com/travel/article/414685

http://www.spiritquesttours.com/blog/ketut-liyer-visiting-with-a-balian/