EAT PRAY LOVE Movie Review. Do YOU, WHEN your LIFE hits CROSSROADS, just dump EVERYTHING and GO on a SOUL-SEARCHING JOURNEY?

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EAT PRAY LOVE is essentially a woman’s story.

In this case it’s LIZ GILBERT’s.

You either eat with her, pray for her or you fall in love with her.

This Reviewer opts out of all three, because she doesn’t seem like a genuinely nice gal.

Our anti-heroine is suffering from marital angst,

and will trample all over you if you are not careful.

She’s plain selfish to a fault.

Why?

She has arrived at a crossroads of  a mid-life crisis.

A woman like this can be unpredictably insecure.

LIZ GILBERT (JULIA ROBERTS) has everything that any normal woman would have ever wanted.

But normalcy is out of her vocabulary.

Outwardly,she has a seemingly adoring husband, a lovely house and a comfortable career as a writer, not in any order of merit.

Yet in her deepest darkest depth, she’s still very much, a bottled-up woman …..

Taking life for granted, her perplexity hits rock bottom, and she suddenly begins to question her existence.

She settles for a simple solution, a decision that has caused pain to those who have stood by her for years.

She presses for a snap divorce from an unwilling husband and begins to enjoy singlehood again.

For  a post-marital fling, she gets sexually entangled with a younger man and unceremoniously also dumps him.

Now being a “free” woman, Liz throws caution to the four winds, and flees for dear life ….

by taking a journey of self-discovery around the world.

You can say it’s a journey through grief at the death of a marriage.

In her travels, she uncovers the true pleasure of EATING in Italy,

the power of PRAYER in India,

and predictably, the inner peace and balance of true LOVE in Bali.

Though many movies have explored Eastern culture and juxtaposed it against the American experience, there still is something insightful in this offering.

And for the price of a cinema ticket, the movie whisks us – to EAT, then PRAY and finally encounter LOVE again, in this complex movie about the recycling of life.

Isn’t it blissful?

Whenever anyone gets the seven-year itch, he/she should abandon everything, divorce the spouse and travel to the unknown for solace.

I wish!

It’s been such a long time since we feast our eyes on JULIA ROBERTS.

She’s still looking ravishingly devine.

She slips into the character of LIZ GILBERT like a glove …. like pure magic.

Angst, desperation, rage ….. she socks it to you in the face, intensely.

It’s a perfect role for her, telling you that old wine mellows with age and grace.

The ensemble of supporting characters around JULIA ROBERTS turns in pleasing performances, embodying their roles with authenticity and a compelling gravity.

You can actually say EAT PRAY LOVE is a triumph of director RYAN MURPHY who co-wrote the screenplay with JENNIFER SALT. At best, it’s visual poetry in motion.

Aside JULIA ROBERTS, this movie brings you on a journey to Italy, India, and Indonesia for a feast of rich words, foods, and scenery.

What more could you have wished for?