Eat, Pray, Love

A Movie Review with Focus on Bali

After much ado about seeing the movie Eat, Pray, Love, this time I braved seeing it alone despite the typhoon alert. It was difficult coordinating with friends that I decided the least path of resistance was to see it on my grocery day. A thought came to pass shortly before going to Megamall, that given a choice and the ever elusive opportunity, Bali would make a wonderful place for a honeymoon. Little that I knew most of the film was shot in Bali. I was hooked.

Based on her book of the same title, Elizabeth Gilbert played by Julia Roberts goes into a journey to find herself starting in Bali after breaking up a marriage which she wasn’t ready for. The movie has several flashbacks, one has to thread the pieces together – the husband (Stephen) is played by Billy Crudup who fights for Liz across the deposition table for their divorce. He represents himself at the deposition, arguing that he truly loves Liz, and is caught sobbing in the elevator after Liz puts her foot down.

Liz, who seeks a life balance after a failed relationship plunges for budding stage actor, a much younger man played by James Franco. Short lived and a doom to fail relationship, they fall apart and Liz goes to three destinations to journey into herself, and into food trips. She travels to Indonesia, Italy and India. In Italy she learns the language just enough to get by, sees the familiar ruins of the Colosseum among others. This is where I dozed off a bit and missed the annotations, as I conjured La Fontana de Trevi would have made a better fit in the movie, like tossing 3 coins in the fountain which I did a long time ago. That Liz (as the author) would have thought it better to pray than to wish was her creative treatment of the plot.

Ahhh, then in India she finds an Ashram and goes deep into prayer and meditation. She hears the sentiments of a young woman who obediently weds according to an arranged marriage. Amidst the festivities to celebrate the wedding, Liz recalls her own wedding reception where she and Stephen as the newly wed couple dance to “Celebration” (you know that hip hop song?) -- her groom with much more vitality than she.

A year into finding peace and tranquility by meditation, she returns to Bali where she meets a Brazilian divorcee (played by Javier Bardem) except the man has had a longer flight into single bliss than she has. Their minds meet, their souls merge, the man prepares dinner for her in one scene, what else can Liz ask for? She takes the man to Ketut, her favorite soothsayer, and the audience is left to surmise what comes after.

I like that the movie showed Liz biking through the streets of Bali and its suburbs. What I can’t reconcile is that Liz is supposedly a thirty plus year old character which Julia Roberts in this movie doesn’t seem to be appropriate for. Julia looks much older with her sunken cheeks and her unkempt straw blonde hair.

I like that the movie subliminally features alternative medicine such that when Liz suffered minor ailments like a cut on her leg caused by a fall from her bicycle, she turns to Wayan, a local “medicine woman.” She and her daughter Tutti live in a rundown place in the outskirts of Bali, treat Liz’s cut and plasters it with a leaf. In the Philippines, guava leaves would be the best to heal a cut or a wound. I like that Liz raises money to a tune of $18,000 for Wayan and Tutti to build a home.

As in most of the movie reviews I have done, I pick what impresses me most and it doesn’t have to be related to the plot. In Eat, Pray, Love, I noticed the light materials and the breezy, balmy ambiance of the homes where most scenes took place. I learned from Wikipedia, that Bali weather has marginal differences in temperature, meaning there could be heavy downpour of only about thirty minutes to an hour in any serious weather change. Meaning further, houses don’t have to be fortified with long span roofing materials and wood is the main component, it looks like. My Dad exported wood to Indonesia way back, I’m wondering if that was his major market.