Eat Pray Love (Film)

10/24/2010 at 10:38 AM (Adventure, Books, Inspired, Movies, Spiritual) (Book vs Movie, Eat Pray Love, Movie)

The movie starring Julia Roberts as the woman who packs up her job and marriage to travel in pursuit of balance mostly stays true to the book but has a tendency to stray off track in the smaller details. I suppose it made the pace faster even if it still turned out to be a movie that was 2.5 hours long in the cinema.

I’m not  going to rehash the plot here since you can easily do that on IMDB . Besides after covering the book plot earlier in the blog covering the film plot  as well would be pointless.

Instead I will stick to some observations that stood out.

1. It was rather interesting to see the relationship between Liz and her editor. I never expected authors would run to the houses of their editors for shelter during a marital breakdown.

2. It was also rather strange to see only the one Giovanni who was Sophie’s paramour throughout the movie. So it turned out they had disposed of the twin Italian tutors from the book.

3. They had completely written out the Italy visit from Liz’s inspiring sister.

4.  They never bothered with Tutti saga where her mother faltered from buying the house until the very last minute until being told the money was going to be taken from her.

5. Felippe’s  son visits him in the film and actually meets Liz and inspires his father to pursue her even if she’s regularly mean and nasty to him. This is no feature of the book.

All I have to say is the movie made me feel nothing – it dragged and felt long. It was not because I’d read the book because I’ve seen the film adaptations of print before and actually found enjoyment in it. Most surprisingly of all, for a film about the woman on the trail of self-discovery, it is the men (Billy Crudup, Richard Jenkins and Javier Bardem ) who stand out.