Zapping around on cable during a sleepless night, I tuned into Eat, Pray, Love on the tube. It seemed a reasonable selection; like many women I enjoy a good relationship film, and I anticipated gorgeous scenes of countries I’ve never visited.
I’m also well aware of the irritation raised in some circles over this book and film, billed as “one woman’s search for everything… ” etc., etc., as the main character, Liz, played by Julia Roberts, travels to Italy, then India, then Bali.
While both book and film found commercial success last year – (yes, I’m late to the party) – some took exception to the storyline as dismissive of marriage, and supportive of the entitled woman and the disposable man.
My thoughts after seeing the film?
I don’t get it.
Eat, Pray, Love is about one married couple in which there’s a disconnect (or several), and a woman with the means and opportunity to call it quits, taking a year to “find herself.”
No kids. Flexible lifestyle. Not anyone I know.
And?
I will say that finding ourselves can be an overrated pursuit, at least, if we expect to arrive at some magical place in which we suddenly have the Answers To Our Dreams, whatever that means.
Back on this planet, I don’t see the relevance.
To be clear, I watched the movie; I didn’t read Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling book. I felt badly for the soon-to-be ex-husband, caught off-guard and wounded by his wife’s departure. But I also note that he paired off with another woman in relatively short order (a year or so?) – at least in the Hollywood version. Of course, she did as well, albeit in shorter order, with the delectable James Franco as her transitional relationship – later moving on to the hunky Javier Bardem.
As for the rest of this theoretically culinary, spiritual, and romantic excursion, I find little to admire or understand in the quest – other than a vague restlessness which many experience at midlife (or earlier), without the need to term it a crisis of any sort – identity, marital, or otherwise.
I do recognize the scattered edges of discontent, the disorientation of an inexplicable unhappiness, and the laborious crawl back to trusting your own judgment following divorce. Other than that, the most I can say is that viewing this movie eased my insomnia and I woke with a serious yearning for a good Italian restaurant.
But I still don’t understand the consternation in a tale that offers none of the charm of Under the Tuscan Sun, and no attachment (for me) to any of the characters.
Couples fall in love. Couples break up. We’re fallible, we’re flawed, we’re messy in the ways we identify what hurts and even messier in the ways we try to make it better. Marriages – and too many of them – come to an end.
But where was the righteous indignation when the hubby in Under the Tuscan Sun runs off with the newer, shinier, much younger model, and rakes his wife over the coals emotionally and financially?
As for Eat, Pray, Love, one woman’s story of post-divorce wandering does not a cultural condemnation make. If only I could have located the movie, Closer, which is nuanced and complex, with situations and performances that raise questions about men and women, and how we address our most intimate relationships.
That said, when insomnia hits again, I’ll be searching for a black and white classic – maybe something with Cary Grant or Spencer Tracy, and the magnificent Kathryn Hepburn. The dialog is far more clever, and I won’t have to worry about a hankering for pasta.
Cue Gretchen Rubin’s “The Happiness Project.” She states clearly at the beginning of her book that she wanted to become happier within the confines of her existing life. She knows that her life (like most of ours) can’t accommodate a Liz Gilbert-esque excursion around the world, and that she would have to make any changes fit within a number of logistical restrictions. As such, I think her approach is much more usable.
As for the vehement reactions that women had to Liz Gilbert’s tale? I think it has everything to do with the “mirror” vs. “window” approach to reading. There is a theory that we choose what we read with the intent of it being either a mirror (a reflection of ourselves) or a window (a means of escaping to something different). Those people who read to find a window loved the book. They loved living vicariously through Gilbert and imagining that they too could flit about the world for a year without being tied down to any place or person. Those people who read to look into a mirror hated the book. They immediately recognized the impracticality of Gilbert’s approach and often resented her freedoms.
As for me, I approached “Eat, Pray, Love” almost as a work of fiction. I saw Gilbert as a character whose adventures were in no way a referendum on my own life. So I didn’t take offense at her experience, but nor did I see it as any kind of example.
Wonderful observations, Gale.
I read the book but haven’t seen the movie so my perspective may be different. The book is an entertaining read (Italy,ashram,Texan) but I had a few eye-rolls with the tidy ending (finding her soul mate, the money for land/house for the single mom debacle working out at the last minute, etc.). Her next book detailing her marriage to Felipe was weaker in comparison. Honestly, I was surprised they even married, on paper, he seemed to be somebody to avoid if anything long-term was the goal. Also, Javier isn’t how I pictured him, more of a Paul Sorvino. Clearly, not everyone can get a book advance, a year off work, and the shedding of responsibility to take a trip like that; the lofty goal it sets for woman is probably more harmful than helpful also. How can another load of diapers and cold pizza before bed compare to the images in the book? They can’t but one is reality and the other is manufactured fiction.
In the film version, Felipe seems like a nice romantic happily ever after, but certainly not the sort to marry. (For that matter, judging by the film characters, I’m not sure I would’ve pegged Liz as someone who would feel a need to marry again.) I suppose that as I get older, I find less value in the packaged up “happily ever after,” period. I’d rather see things that are more attainable, more authentic, yet still good, in all the ways that life can be. Even with the cold pizza for dinner. And breakfast.
Julia doesn’t look like she’s having much fun with Javier on the DVD cover.
Give me Cary and Kate.
I’m with you, Wolf. 🙂
As I wrote awhile back, “EPL” is a self-absorbed book (didn’t see the movie) that gives women the wrong message. I’m all for escaping away from regular life and finding adventure, spirituality, Javier Bardem (especially Javier Bradem). If I could, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
But the path to self-discovery for a woman post divorce has little to do with pasta and ashrams, and everything to do with being on her own and figuring out “Who am I now, at my age, without a husband?” And key to that is learning how to be alone.
I’m with you, BLW.
I’m with Gale. Saw the movie, did not read the book. I like Julia Roberts, I like happy endings. Movies are entertainment for me, and I don’t expect reality. I would love to have a year to go where my heart took me, doing what my heart wants to do. In real life that’s not possible – in movies, it is. Good for Gilbert, being able to do what most of us can only dream of doing (not necessarily including the divorce part).
I read the book. I liked it. I enjoyed figuring out how one person can be so multifaceted – indulging in pasta and Italy, sitting hours in meditation in India (the movie glossed over her Spiritual life commitment), and, accidentally, finding a true love. I was inspired by her path to forgiveness of her ex husband and herself (it was hinted that she had had an affair).
The movie was just entertainment.
I read her next book as well. She and her Filipe did NOT want to get married. They wanted to be together, but each had had such a bad marriage experience, they not want to mess up what they had by getting married. But, if they wanted to be together in the US, they needed to be married. The book is the story of their year after getting married and traveling through other countries, while waiting to be able to reenter the US, and her examination of marriage in various cultures so as to become more peaceful with the fact that they did, indeed, marry.
The examination of marriage in various cultures sounds like it would be an interesting read. That alone would encourage me to seek out the second book. (Is it worth it, Lunaboogie?)
You had me at “I don’t get it.”
Probably not (was worth it to me because I so was curious, and I read very fast), but her TED talk is definitely worth listening to.
I read the book at a more grounded time in my life so I found the book a great read; I envied Ms. Gilbert for having the means to take a year off from Life and admired her game plan (Italy, India, and Bali). I watched the movie when my own life became consumed by my husband’s life crisis and at that point, I, too, did not get it. At that point in my life, as I struggled to make sense of my marriage and help my daughter conquer long division, I understood the comments about EPL being overly self-indulgent and self-ish. As you and I have pondered before, is making ME happy really good for me and those that I love? Thank goodness for James Franco’s beautiful body and tortured character 😉
Smiling… Yes, James Franco definitely provided some of the more pleasant moments in the movie for me, Joy.
As you say, we’ve discussed this issue of making the “self” happy and, as with much in life, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. But I firmly believe that we’d all be better off if we didn’t foster and encourage the notion that “happiness” is somehow a specific destination (and by doing X, Y, or Z we would arrive there and stay forever). For one thing “happy” is much too broad and generic a term to cover all the emotional states of being that fill us with the good stuff. There’s contentment, pride in what we’ve done, satisfaction, euphoria, joy, and more. And we experience these emotions (and all the others – positive and negative) as part of our journey through life.
If only we had the forbearance (and patience? wisdom?) to take our time with ourselves and each other, and recognize that there is no perfect person, no perfect situation, no perfect state of self… we might be more ready to embrace the full range of good moments that we experience on our own, and with those we love.
And “happiness” when others suffer?
Not so easy to justify, in my opinion. A hard call – and one that isn’t always an either/or, but possibly a series of compromises, like adults. (Okay. Off my soap box for now.) 🙂
I couldn’t get through the book. The whiny tone was particularly dreadful for me. I watched the movie and the Indian ashram scenes were offensive to me. It trivialized the meditative process and what it truly means to lead life in an ashram.
I’ve seen the film and was utterly disappointed. The story lacks cohesion, is filled with cliches and dreadful stereotypes. Her sojourn in Italy being a classic American approach to understanding “La Dolce Vita”. Yes, some Roman ruins and eating pasta, oh and they talk with their hands. And that about wraps it up.
And I once read an excellent review that summed this movie up in one sentence: It took Liz an hour and a half to reach a breakthrough moment, something Frances in Under the Tuscan Sun manages to do faster, better and absolutely more convincingly.
I couldn’t agree more with that summation, coffeeaddict!
I have read the book and do not want to see the movie.
Gale’s “mirror vs. window” perspective on reading literature is insightful, though I believe readers of “Eat, Pray, Love” are more likely to be divided along “been through divorce vs. not been through divorce” lines.
For the majority of people, divorce is a traumatic experience, with profound implications. And if you have been through divorce hell, you don’t relate to it lightly, as Elizabeth Gilbert does. I found her references to her ‘divorce’ a bit of a joke. “She calls that a divorce,” I kept saying to myself. No agony, no pain, no kids?
Her romp around the globe to ‘find herself’ happened to follow the breakup of her marriage, but it was divorced from her divorce. The divorce itself had virtually no impact at all on her, except for opening up a time slot. Her quest was like an adolescent search for meaning that took her on a journey usually undertaken at a much earlier stage in life, to better effect.
You raise excellent points, Leo. The (reading and viewing) experience of those who have been through divorce vs. those who haven’t changes the reaction to Gilbert’s story. I might go so far as to say those who have been through an acrimonious divorce (with kids, with rough aftermath, etc.) have a different experience from those who seem to take it more lightly (like Gilbert?) – perhaps the difference of who wants the split, a mediator vs adversarial attorneys, the state you divorce in – all the many variables that can make the experience hell for years versus a painful time?
I have read the book and seen the movie, and while I don’t resent them in any way, I wasn’t impressed with either. Gilbert’s motive seemed less a process of self exploration than a desire to just “do something different”. I didn’t get the feeling that she, nor the principals in the movie making had ever undergone any life crises or serious soul searching.
On the other hand, I just got back from seeing “The Way”. It is an incredible movie which should be seen on the big screen. It delivers on the same premise as E-P-L, but with far more insight, heart, elegance and beauty.
I haven’t heard of “The Way,” Robert. Sounds like a thumbs up worth checking into. Thank you!