Eat…Pray…Love…
Eat…Pray…Love…
How simple can life be… Don’t we all wish our lives are just simple like that? Where all we have to do is Eat…Pray…Love!! Of course we do.. Well if not everyday there are some days in our lives when we just want to do that. And there are also days when we just don’t feel like doing anything. Couldn’t help but love the way Julia Roberts put it in Italian - Dolce Far Niente. And today was one of those days when I really enjoyed the sweetness of doing nothing… and then went ahead and enjoyed this evening show with my friends.
I had a good time enjoying the scenes from three lovely places, however I would have to say I had much more appetite for these than what I got. The glimpses that I got of each place were so not enough to describe the places as neatly as Elizabeth Gilbert did it herself. And I will have to say this for the entire movie. The movie could not do full justice to the book she has written. I could see the effort Julia Roberts put into the role she played and also most other actors. But some connection…something was missing. Perhaps the flow from where the famous author decides to get a divorce …to ending up in a relationship with a much younger guy..to ending up in Italy. The flow was not constructed as apt as described in the book. Of course I’ll have to state the fact that where a writer gets more than 300 pages to describe these situations, a director has to say the same story in just over 60 minutes! But I think that’s where the director’s role begins.
While I was watching the movie and later on listening to my good friend’s feedback over few things – I figured that the film failed to strike a good balance between the book-telling-a-story and film-telling-a-story ..for the lack of a better word/phrase! I’ll elaborate. There were many scenes like the one I described earlier..the time she decides to just walk away from the marriage..or the time she decides she chooses to go to Italy ..India… and her first visit to Bali.. All these times were very blurred in the movie. For somebody like me who has read the book – I could make that connection. ‘Cos I knew why that happened..What made the female take that decision. But for someone who just wants to go see the movie – it was difficult to get that part. They could have been better constructed.
While criticizing all these things, I will have to mention that the actors did a great job. They understood the writer’s characters so well..and portrayed very well too except for Billy Crudup – who plays Julia’s husband. The rest of them knew exactly what their role was in the story. Interestingly, as and how the story unfolded, I could see the people just as I had visualized while reading the book. Be it the toothless Ketut or Richard from Texas or the cute looking Tutti… I will have to say that I had imagined an older looking man than Javier Bardem in Felipe’s role..since I had since Gilbert’s husband over some internet pix. The personalities of the character from both places had a huge contrast between them. However, I also feel that the casting director might have been compelled to cast a younger looking hunk playing that role to fit the spot with Roberts. Having said that I will have to confess Bardem did full justice to my visualisations of Felipe while reading. Of course, Roberts as always was charming! She has this raw quality to herself that fit perfectly in my vision of Gilbert… And if I might add compliments for the costume designer too here. Neat job!
I somehow keep going back to this one thing that didn’t strike at me very well while reading the book. Its perhaps just my mindset or perception toward somethings that have changed. I can’t take out the scene from my head - the one from the barber shop where Giuseppe Gandini tells candidly to Roberts that Americans don’t have the passion for life and more interestingly somebody – can even be a commercial – has to come and tell them to go take it easy…or have fun. I don’t know its me at this juncture of my life or its just the awe of watching a good movie… But I can totally relate to that. I can totally see what he might have meant.. The culture here just doesn’t let people be themselves. Everything gets to this superficial level where people often forget the zeal…the enthusiasm…the appetite for life… And I mean people – in general – irrespective of where they have come from! Ah! No wonder Gilbert felt compelled to just leave everything she had in search of some very core things all of us want to feel that makes us humans!
I don’t mean to typecast or comment or even justify anybody/any culture by saying this.. Its just what I felt. Hope you enjoy/enjoyed reading the book as much as I did..
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