Wishing everyone a Valentine's Day
full of warm happy vibes.
If you are thinking of spending Valentine's cuddling under a blanket while enjoying a movie together, I would recommend that you give this one a pass. We recently rented Eat, Pray, Love after hearing all the hype about the book and movie. The movie is based on the book written by Elizabeth Gilbert in which she chronicles her travels to Italy, India and Indonesia in an attempt to find balance in her life. The movie starts with Elizabeth (Julia Roberts) walking away from her marriage, suffering a brief period of depression, and then deciding she needs to travel for a year in order to find herself.
She first travels to Italy where she immerses herself in Italy's culture...well actually...she eats...and one third of the film is focused on her developing a "love" relationship with food.
She then travels to India where she scrubs floors and practices hours of silent meditation at her Guru's Ashram. Her meditations bring her to God...or the revelation that God is found within herself, and to find peace one must return-to-self.
In Bali, Indonesia, Elizabeth consults with Ketut, a ninth generation Indian medicine man, who tells her, "To find the balance that you want, you must keep your feet grounded so firmly on earth that it's like you have four legs, instead of two. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart instead. That way you will know God."
While in Indonesia she meets and falls in love with Felipe, a Brazilian man who loves her with such intensity that she feels unbalanced and scared, enough so that she is about to board a plane and go home, leaving Felipe behind and it is only the last minute advice of Ketut "that it is OK to be unbalanced for love" that she changes her mind and stays...
While the hubby snoozed through this movie I managed to stay awake...but just barely. The movie is long, tedious and uninspiring...certainly unworthy of all the hype. I found Elizabeth to be a self absorbent, self indulgent twit who is willing to walk away from a marriage for no other apparent reason but that the "novelty" has worn off.
While the book is touted as a wonderful book of self-discovery that will nourish your soul I found the movie to be lacking, and I suspect that the book is no more promising.
My thoughts on self discovery:
... can't find myself...no need to travel half way round the world... just plant my ass under the giant hemlock in our back yard and and gaze up through the branches at the sky.
...can't get any closer to God than that
...better yet
...I'll take a big bag of Lays chips along and rekindle my love relationship with food...killing two birds at the same time.
...and as for being "balanced"...how boring is that?
Sadly, I agree with you Marisa-- I wished it was a better movie but it didn't come close to the book and, although I think I'm in the minority, I couldn't figure out what all the hype was about. I give it two thumbs down but I'd love a bag of chips ;-)
ReplyDeleteCheers, jj
Are you comparing Lay chips to Italian food! Now, your homemade meals are worthy compeition, but chips! (The Italy part was the only part of the story I liked).
ReplyDeleteAs far as shelling out around 30,000 grand (just guessing) to find enlightenment, well, maybe they don't have hemlocks in NYC . . . but I didn't like the story either; it lacked genuine insight. The book I'm reading now "What the Buddha Never Taught" is a much better travel/enlightenemnt memoir.