Perhaps you haven't noticed but modern movies by, for and about women deal with one hugely dubious subject - self-involvement. It's not exactly flattering and this new subgenre reached something of a nadir with Michael Patrick King's wretched "Sex and the City 2," which added a bizarre obsession with obscenely expensive shoes to the mix.There's no where to go but up, right?
Ryan Murphy's film version of Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love" - retitled "Eat Pray Love" by Hollywood marketing - is something of an anti-"Sex and the City 2." The heroine's searching in this film is for her soul.
Not some designer label.
That makes a big difference - that and star Julia Roberts who reaches deep within herself to make the narcissism of this film's heroine palatable. Roberts works overtime - the star is on screen for the film's entire 133-minute running time - and she works wonders.
While I could care less about Elizabeth Gilbert's entitled problems, Julia's "Liz Gilbert" effectively sucked me in. I was hooked. I didn't even care if her search was for a rare pair of Manolo Blahniks. Luckily, "Eat Pray Love" is about her search for identity - and, by extention, peace.
6 comments:
Incisive, again, and right as rain, for contrasting Julia's film with Sarah Jessica's.
Why is it that these unflattering films about selfish women are made by gay filmmakers? What's going on here?
Compelling questions, Santos, but I'm not sure "Eat Pray Love" is unflattering. At least it's about something.
Niceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I think that E-P-L is hands-down absolutely the best American movie of the decade, so I may be clinically insane.
No it's a silly movie masquerading as a serious movie--it's ostensibly about enlightenment but Julia forgoes that to get her man in order to reach true satori all while getting paid to write about it--isn't that special?
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