Eat Pray Love is a movie that pretends to be more than it is. It imagines itself as a universally philosophical journey that one woman takes to discover what's important in her life following an impending divorce. It instead plays as a travelogue to Italy (where she eats), India (where she prays), and Bali (where she loves) with a superficial sheen of self-discovery, but lacking any depth or importance. The plot is barebones and unconvincing. Perhaps the book is better, but watching this movie I had no idea why Liz (Roberts) was so fed up with her husband (Crudup) that she needed a divorce. I normally wouldn't have cared except that it was the impetus of her actions and the crux of the movie. Her journey is worthless if we don't understand why she's going on it in the first place. My other big complaint was at the end, where she meets and (apparently) falls in love with Felipe (Bardem). For the life of me, I cannot figure out why. They are together for a few unwitnessed days/weeks and suddenly they are in love? Their romance is assumed instead of shown (no thanks to the overabundant narration). There was more passion with the food in Italy.Despite my criticisms, I didn't actually hate this movie. In fact, I didn't mind it at all, thanks to the acting, cinematography, and editing. While none of the actors were bad, they were pretty flat and boring. I couldn't tell if it was bad acting or bad writing, but based on the rest of the screenplay, I'm going to assume it's bad writing. However, Roberts and Jenkins were given very interesting characters to play, and they fill each scene they're in with emotion and empathy. While I don't think the cinematography was actually that impressive, the locales themselves are gorgeous. They're captured in exquisite detail, and I felt transported to each city. The editing was surprisingly the best part about the movie. It is extremely well done, cutting across time and space to unite multiple ideas and thoughts. But most people, myself included, can't treasure technical prowess if the storyline is bad or forgettable. And that is this film's fatal flaw. If you were interested in the movie based on the trailer, you might enjoy wasting 2 hours and 15 minutes watching it. But for everyone else, just pretend it never existed.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0879870/