Review: Eat Pray Love

Julia Roberts proves she's got depth, as she takes on the role of a writer seeking enlightenment in this Ryan Murphy film based on the Elizabeth Gilbert bestseller. The film still bumps into contrivance and the odd patch of schmaltz, but for a chick flick featuring Roberts in the central role, Eat Pray Love marks a welcome, if late, re-entry into the adult world of storytelling.

Starring: Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem, Billy Crudup, James Franco and Viola Davis

Rating: Three and a half stars out of five

Consider it the spiritual bookend to Pretty Woman. Or at least the grown-up gal's answer to childish Cinderella wishes, because Eat Pray Love is built around something altogether subversive: the refusal of the marriage dream.

Where almost every other chick flick features a quest for the perfect man as the female's central obsession, this adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's bestseller begins with the ideal achieved.

Liz (Julia Roberts) lives in the perfect home with her perfect husband (Billy Crudup). They have money, fame and wonderful friends. And yet, after a working visit to Bali, Liz begins questioning her achievements and her own happiness.

Much to her surprise, she discovers she's depressed. She feels stifled and numbed by her commitment, her urban comforts and her glamorous job. She needs to get away. She needs to redefine herself in an entirely new context.

So begins Liz's excellent adventure, and so begins Julia Roberts's recreation as female role model: from the fairy-tale sex worker who becomes a millionaire housewife to a modern professional woman seeking personal enlightenment. The middle-aged actor makes a significant leap up the ladder of character consciousness with this role, and she pulls it off completely.

While her career has afforded countless opportunities for Roberts to show off her striking camera angles, she's never had the chance to really showcase her thespian dimens! ions wit hout a single diva entrance or glam shot in decolletage.

This movie directed by Ryan Murphy (director and writer of Glee) gives her a great big canvas to work on, and where too much space can often result in too much material that just turns muddy from too much work, Roberts spreads herself around the frame with a surprising amount of restraint.

In fact, it's easy to buy Roberts as the uptight diarist, because her entire persona screams "control freak." Half the time, you're never too sure what Roberts is really thinking, because she has that sharp edge of sarcasm and wit that generally earns women the "bitch" label.

As Gilbert, she doesn't have to apologize for any ice-queen predisposition. She can own all her edginess and bring it to the fore as she establishes Liz at Square 1: Confused, afraid but eager to embrace life at a deeper level.

From the outside, the quest could be seen as selfish and entirely shallow, but Murphy doesn't try to camouflage the inherent narcissism that pushes Liz to redefine her life, regardless of whom it hurts.

He brings the whole matter of ego to the very centre of the frame, as we watch Liz slowly begin to reassemble her life after blowing it up in the first act.

First, she ditches her husband, only to end up sleeping with a young actor (James Franco). The shift seems important, but eventually, Liz needs something more satisfying than a change of bedmates. She needs a change of lifestyle and scenery, and decides to head off to Italy, India and Bali in search of personal truth.

Over the course of the journey, she learns to stop counting calories, to appreciate the moment, to love the people around her, to pray, and to trust -- not necessarily in that order.

Because the sentiments are always sincere, Eat Pray Love could have been a messy slopfest that made Steel Magnolias look hip and ironic, but Murphy creates just the right mood, with his delicate dramatic touch and his sophisticated frames that freq! uently c ondense timelines in a single shot.

Because the book is written in the first person, and so much of what happens is internal dialogue, Murphy and Roberts had to blend the internal and external. They make it work through copious voice-over and sheer performance, and on that score, Roberts proves she's got -- OMG -- depth.

There is one sequence in India where Liz watches a young woman get married to a man who was chosen for her -- the cultural antithesis of where Liz is coming from, and where Liz is going. The moment could have been full of judgment and pity, but Roberts finds an expression of love and acceptance that makes a deep enough impression, it becomes a pivot point in the film, as Liz learns to see beyond herself, and her own notion of happiness.

We don't generally see movies with a truly mature attitude to personal realization. Transformation is usually delivered at the end of a gun barrel or an avuncular psychiatrist with twinkling eyes and a beard, but this movie delivers a real person moving through believable change. Moreover, most of Liz's transformation doesn't rest on the broad shoulders of a man.

The film still bumps into contrivance and the odd patch of schmaltz, but for a chick flick featuring Roberts in the central role, Eat Pray Love marks a welcome, if late, re-entry into the adult world of storytelling.

Copyright (c) Postmedia News