To The Movies: Eat, Pray, Love

When a storyline from a book is turned into a movie, the movie becomes its own text. The basic storyline may be the same, but when changes are made in order to fit the movie within a time limit or to highlight an element or theme that the people involved in the movie feels is important—they make the story their own. I will focus these features on movies made based on books I have read—I want to look beyond whether I think the movie is better or worse than the book. I want to appreciate and review the movie as a companion to the book.
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Genre: Drama, Romance
Actors: Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem, and Richard Jenkins
Director: Ryan Murphy
Scriptwriter: Ryan Murphy and Jennifer Salt
Date DVD Released: November 23, 2010
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Movie Info: IMDB
Order Online: Amazon.com
Rating:2 Stars
Borrowed movie from library.s.

In A Nutshell:
I was really disappointed in this movie. I struggled with the book, but throughout the entire book I saw Elizabeth Gilbert as a strong woman on a quest to reclaim her own life who in the end found a man who loved her for being strong. Watching the movie however, I thought that Elizabeth Gilbert was a woman on a quest to find love and through love she would have a life. How is that better or different from the life she left behind in New York?

Review: (spoilers below)
I held out hope that the movie would address some of the issues I had with the book, namely the unfocused ramblings. In some ways it did, but instead of being an improvement I felt it was a travesty. Instead of keeping with the idea of Elizabeth Gilbert as a strong woman on a search to find herself and love herself--the movie made it look like her entire search was for the guy that would complete her.

I did read the book--I knew that she was going to find Felipe in the end. But over the course of the book I never felt like the search for him was her main purpose. It was a happy accident--and one I was glad happened because I was happy for her. By comparison, the movie focused so much on her loneliness in Italy in comparison to her friends who are in love. Then at the Guru's retreat the movie focuses on her loneliness in comparison to her friend who is getting married (even though it was an arranged marriage and her friend is unsure of whether she will be happy or not). So of course in Bali she has to find love, right?

And I thought it was ironic that her friend at the beginning of the movie commented that when she was in a relationship she took on the look of her partner (in the same way some people start to look like their dogs). You can see a still from that part of the movie here. Then at the end, don't you think she looks like her partner here or here?  Did anything really change?

Recommendations:
I must confess that I am one of the few people in the world who have not seen Coyote Ugly so I think that I am going to go watch that and forget about Eat Pray Love:

The Book Addict Reviews: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Genre: Travel, Memoir
Order Online: Amazon.com
Author Info: Website | Goodreads
Rating: 2 stars
Bought this book after a friend told me about it.

In A Nutshell:
A good friend of mine raved about this book, so I finally sat down and read it.  Maybe my expectations were high because of all that my friend had told me, but overall I was rather underwhelmed with the book. 

Review:
I am currently in the middle of a divorce. I only share this fact because I believe my review of this book will be affected by where I am in my life right now. And as I have talked to a few of my friends who have read this book, our reveiws seemed to be tied to what is going on in our lives. If we are in transition (like me) than we found parts that really hit us. But my friends who are content with where they are in their lives right now found the book impossible.

There were quite a few stories/ideas/beads that really resonated with me. In particular, as she talks about her relationship with her ex-husband and David and really getting over those two relationships. I found a lot of food for thought in those beads.

But I only gave this book a 2 because there were other aspects of this book that really annoyed me. First, there was a lot of rambling, and so there was a few times I almost gave up because I kept thinking why am I reading this? Why do I care? It kind of reminded me of listening to that annoying person who insists on telling you his/her life story after you asked "how are you doing today?"

Second, I felt a little bit of contradiction. On one hand she wants to protect the people in her story by not telling the readers who her guru is or how to find the locations. But on the other hand she seems to be trying to help the reader start his/her own journey to enlightenment. How? Where can we start? Can we do it without taking off for a year? I was hoping the end would have some guidance, but no.

Recommendations:
While I was not overly impressed with Eat, Pray, Love, I started looking at Elizabeth Gilbert's website and found out about some of the other books/stories she had written.  I found out that she wrote an article for GQ that became the inspiration for Coyote Ugly.  I want to find that article.