eat pray love (the film): a review

I try to avoid reviewing books and films. In writing, at least. I do like to share what I love about them, what inspired me when I read or  watched them, but I don't like to criticise - because I know how much thought and effort is embedded within them. I try to restrict my criticism to politicians (with the exception of Obama, of course) and (the abomination)  Sex and the City II. So this review of Eat Pray Love, the film, will be a kind one, but one which will steadfastly defend the book I love so much.

I'm sure you probably know how much I love Eat Pray Love. It's not that I could relate to the book in its entirety. Elizabeth Gilbert and I are different in a lot of ways. She is of another generation, a different upbringing, a different culture. I have never been married, nor divorced. I am nearly two decades younger than she. We have differing religious beliefs. Nevertheless, I adore her. I don't think that we need to share life experiences or characteristics in order to be able to empathise with somebody's pain and joy. And because she is such a beautiful writer that you cannot help but fall in love with her... as long as you read her book with an open heart. Which I suspect a lot of jaded women have NOT been doing. (See, I am biased. Sorry!)

Anyhow, I watched the film a few weeks ago. I enjoyed it a lot. I cried in parts (three times, to be exact... the Thanksgiving dinner, Richard's confession and José's son leaving him). I laughed. I thought that Julia Roberts was a good fit for the role of Liz. I fell in love with the gorgeous Javier Bardem and James Franco. Ketut and Wayan were as charming as I imagined. The scenery was beautiful. 

The only thing about the movie that didn't quite sit right was the premise. Which, as you can imagine, is a pretty big deal. It seems to have ruined the film for people who have not yet read the book and now, are very unlikely to ever do so. David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz - two movie reviewers I admire very much - are just two examples of disillusioned audience members. You can read their review here. (Please do. It's pretty funny.) Here is an excerpt: 

MARGARET: It is interminable and twee and unbelievably self-indulgent and the trouble is that much as you want to enjoy this character I just found I couldn't. I found it - I couldn't understand why she abruptly breaks up her marriage to begin with.

DAVID: No. That put me off right from the start because the husband seemed so...

MARGARET: ... and she caused a lot of hurt in the process and, oh, she's going off to discover herself and it sort of immediately sets up a tremendously selfish motive.

DAVID: It's a me, me, me film.

MARGARET: And I should sympathise with this woman more but - I tried to read the book and I actually couldn't.

DAVID: Ah, okay.

MARGARET: So I'm a bit with you on this.

DAVID: So I don't feel so bad not having read the book?

MARGARET: No. No, don't feel guilty. Not that you ever would.

DAVID: Not that I would, no.

MARGARET: Look, I'm giving this two and a half stars.

DAVID: Oh, really? Okay, well, I'm giving it one and a half.

Now, I would never dispute their right to have an opinion. And it is a very esteemed opinion at that. But here exists a clash - a clash of pre-ordained judgments of the film and the film failing to address those inevitable preconceptions in its storyline. What I mean to say is that Eat Pray Love was always going a film that would be heavily criticised. It is, after all, now considered a cliché for women "finding themselves", and Liz's journey is often made light of, sometimes in a nasty way. This column by Karen Brooks, for example, is particularly scathing.

It is clear to me that David and Margaret saw the film with the impression that it would be a bit of a self-indulgent joke. And that impression has been fulfilled, to the tee. The film DOES portray Liz as selfish and delusional. Her husband seems eccentric and perhaps a little selfish himself... but, of course, that is not reason enough to leave somebody and cause them so much hurt and pain. So of course David and Margaret think that Liz is utterly self-centred, and therefore deemed the rest of the film completely frivolous and worthless. Because the insensitivity and superficiality with which the divorce was dealt cheapened the journey itself.

The thing is, the divorce was glossed over in the book as well. But not because Liz made her decision to leave her husband lightly. It was out of respect to him; she did not want to delve into their marriage breakdown at all. She just made clear that she had loved him dearly, but she was desperately unhappy. It was not only his fault, nor was it hers. Well, in actual fact, they were both to blame. And the gulf between them simply could not be bridged. It was over.

Despite that, Liz details the pain of the divorce in excruciating detail. The divorce spanned over two years. He refused to acquiese, no matter how much she bequeathed him. (This is her ex-husband, by the way. Word has it that he also took off after the divorce was finalised, traveling through the Middle East providing aid to the needy. No need to judge whose journey was more noble... but he seems to be a good person.) Liz spiraled into a deep depression which, despite her best efforts, could only be curbed by medication. The film-makers clearly decided not to cover that ground. I understand their decision, I suppose. They wanted to make a feel-good, inspirational film, and launch into the eating, praying and loving as soon as possible - which is so much more fun than heartache and depression. 

By avoiding the melodrama of the book, however, the film presented as Liz's story as shallow. What on earth did they hope to achieve by the ridiculous divorce settlement scene, for example? Was it supposed to be humorous? Because all it did was make divorce seem like some sort of selfish bourgeoisie game. Which it is not. It is difficult, hurtful and incredibly sad. So, with all that in mind, it is natural that people who did not read, understand or relate to the book find the movie excruciating.

Please know that I am totally aware of the fact that screenwriters need to condense an entire book into a relatively short film, and that many nuances will be left by the wayside. Of course that is inevitable. But since that is the case, it should have been that the screenwriters had the foresight to realise that they would never be able to capture the complexity of a marriage within a few short minutes. And so they should have, quite rightfully, glossed over it. But with sensitivity. With the message that: "This was painful. This was hard. Whether or not it was the right thing to do, we will never know, but Liz was desperately unhappy and, after trying and trying to make it work, she did the best thing she could do for herself, and for her husband."

Okay. So I know that I am no professional screenwriter. In fact, I know absolutely nothing about it. Except that I watch films. And I like Elizabeth Gilbert. I don't like it when people criticise and don't offer a viable solution. So, for those EPL afficionados out there (for I know many of you exist, even if you won't admit it), here is my ideal exposition.... I would start with the famous bathroom scene. Where Liz is desperately asking God what on earth to do, because she doesn't want to be married anymore. That scene would reveal the gravity of her pain. With no need for explanations or justifications. Then go to Bali. Meet Ketut. Then tell her husband she is leaving him. I wouldn't have made him a character, as such. More of a shadowy being to represent Liz's intense unhappiness and dissatisfaction with her life. (Somewhat like the opening scenes of Antonioni's L'Eclisse... for film buffs.)

That's it. I think those three scenes would be enough. Then they could have launched into all the fun yummy stuff, like her love affair with bedroom-eyed David, traipsing through the streets of Rome, finding clarity in India, bicycling through the Balinese jungle and making love to Penelope Cruz's husband. Because that is all perfectly lovely and heart-lifting. But without the underlying backstory - without the journey from one state of being to another, which was the whole rationale behind the trip in the first place - it just has no meaning. The audience cannot be truly happy for their protagonist, because there is nothing to validate the transformation she undertakes. All we see is an incredibly beautiful woman sweeping from one privileged life to the next, from one loving man into the arms of another... and another. Why on earth should we care?

So that is my first review. What did you think of the movie? Have you read the book? I would love to hear your opinions!

some thoughts on writing

At present, I'm writing a little review of Eat Pray Love, the movie, which should be up in a week or so. In the meantime, I was perusing Elizabeth Gilbert's website for some research material and came across "Some Thoughts on Writing" - Liz's sage advice for aspiring writers, which I think would also apply (at least partially) to bloggers, artists, and perhaps anybody striving to achieve what seems like a far-off dream...

... I believe that – if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression – that you should take on this work like a holy calling. I became a writer the way other people become monks or nuns. I made a vow to writing, very young. I became Bride-of-Writing. I was writing’s most devotional handmaiden. I built my entire life around writing. I didn’t know how else to do this. I didn’t know anyone who had ever become a writer. I had no, as they say, connections. I had no clues. I just began.

... I created my own post-graduate writing program, which entailed several years spent traveling around the country and world, taking jobs at bars and restaurants and ranches, listening to how people spoke, collecting experiences and writing constantly. My life probably looked disordered to observers (not that anyone was observing it that closely) but my travels were a very deliberate effort to learn as much as I could about life, expressly so that I could write about it.

... Send your work off to editors and agents as much as possible, show it to your neighbors, plaster it on the walls of the bus stops – just don’t sit on your work and suffocate it. At least try. And when the powers-that-be send you back your manuscript (and they will), take a deep breath and try again. I often hear people say, “I’m not good enough yet to be published.” That’s quite possible. Probable, even. All I’m saying is: Let someone else decide that. Magazines, editors, agents – they all employ young people making $22,000 a year whose job it is to read through piles of manuscripts and send you back letters telling you that you aren’t good enough yet: LET THEM DO IT. Don’t pre-reject yourself. That’s their job, not yours. Your job is only to write your heart out, and let destiny take care of the rest.

... As for discipline – it’s important, but sort of over-rated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness... Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness (which comes from a place of kind and encouraging and motherly love). 

...  Always, at the end of the day, the important thing is only and always that: Get back to work. This is a path for the courageous and the faithful. You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place.

... Writing is not like dancing or modeling; it’s not something where – if you missed it by age 19 – you’re finished. It’s never too late. Your writing will only get better as you get older and wiser. If you write something beautiful and important, and the right person somehow discovers it, they will clear room for you on the bookshelves of the world – at any age. At least try.

... Everyone I know who managed to become a writer did it differently – sometimes radically differently. Try all the ways, I guess. Becoming a published writer is sort of like trying to find a cheap apartment in New York City: it’s impossible. And yet…every single day, somebody manages to find a cheap apartment in New York City. I can’t tell you how to do it. I’m still not even entirely sure how I did it. I can only tell you – through my own example – that it can be done. I once found a cheap apartment in Manhattan. And I also became a writer.

... My suggestion is that you start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line. 

... If you decide to write, then you must do it, as Balzac said, “like a miner buried under a fallen roof.” Become a knight, a force of diligence and faith. I don’t know how else to do it except that way. As the great poet Jack Gilbert said once to young writer, when she asked him for advice about her own poems: “Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES." 

To sum it up, I would say that Liz's advice amounts to...

... Write

... Live and breathe writing

... Travel

... Share your writing

... Forgive yourself

... Get back to work

... At least try

And most importantly...

... Your job is only to write your heart out, and let destiny take care of the rest... start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line.

I think I can handle that.

(Picture via partytights)

live your best life

So, would you do me a favour? Watch this. It is a little long, so feel free to wait until you have about 20 minutes to spare and perhaps some tea. Tim Tams will also go down a treat.

I have already written about my love for Elizabeth Gilbert. I loved Eat Pray Love, and Committed even more. She seems to be polarising in some ways but I think that she is intelligent and endearing. Her ideas and philosophies are incredibly valuable to modern women, whether or not you agree with them wholeheartedly.

Whatever your response to her books, I guarantee that you will fall in love with her after you watch her speak - she is so natural and accessible. I have posted her musings on creativity (see my first ever blog post, things that inspire me), and I recently watched this video of Liz speaking at Oprah's Live Your Best Life, a festival to celebrate the 10th anniversary of O Magazine. To paraphrase, Liz unveils the irony behind the fact that people look to her to find out how to live life (specifically how to get their lives "together"), when she just doesn't have the answers. Nobody does. She also explores the reasons so many of us look to others for the key, "the secret", to a happy, successful and fulfilling life.

Liz believes that this movement is a consequence of our burgeoning world. In a landscape where the possibilities are absolutely endless, it is so difficult to define our goals, hopes and dreams. Our parameters. Infinite options can be paralysing - when there are so many alternatives, it's almost impossible to be convinced of our choices, when we finally have the courage to make them. Choosing just one door, when there is an over-abundance open to us, is scary. I have struggled with this myself. I still do.

So there are the choices. There is also that imminent fear of failure. When we have the world at our feet, it's difficult to justify falling flat on our faces, not in the least to ourselves. We are bombarded with this ideal of "perfection", which we are expected to uphold in all realms of life - we should be good people, successful in our careers, supportive of loved ones, calm and collected, healthy, beautiful, interesting, happy... the list is never-ending. This all-round perfection is, of course, completely and utterly unattainable, which means that failure is inevitable. It's a viscous cycle.

Women are especially prone to this brutal discontent. As Liz notes, we are the first generation of women in the history of mankind who have had freedom, autonomy, literacy and access to their own power. We don't have strong, independent women to look to in history books. We are on the front line. No wonder it is so difficult to carve out our niche.

Liz uses the metaphor of the "maze":

When I look at my life and the lives of my female friends these days—with our dizzying number of opportunities and talents—I sometimes feel as though we are all mice in a giant experimental maze, scurrying around frantically, trying to find our way through. But maybe there's a good historical reason for all this overwhelming confusion. We don't have centuries of educated, autonomous female role models to imitate here (there were no women quite like us until very recently), so nobody has given us a map. As a result, we each race forth blindly into this new maze of limitless options. And the risks are steep. We make mistakes. We take sharp turns, hoping to stumble on an open path, only to bump into dead-end walls and have to back up and start all over again. We push mysterious levers, hoping to earn a reward, only to learn—whoops, that was a suffering button!

So this all brings us to the "age of memoir", (arguably) ruled by Oprah, the queen of self-discovery and self-examination. The popularity of the memoir is precipitated by our need to see how everybody else is solving these universal, endless questions. Snippets from other people's lives provide clues for our own "scavenger hunt". The danger, of course, is to compare ourselves with other people. The resulting envy and self-doubt is nothing but harmful and self-destructive. Consider this quote by spiritual guru Osho, from The Book of Understanding: “In this world, it is very difficult to find a happy person, because nobody is fulfilling the conditions for being happy. The first condition is that one has to drop all comparison. Drop all these stupid ideas of being superior and inferior. You are neither superior nor inferior. You are simply yourself! There exists no one like you, no one with whom you can be compared. Then, suddenly, you are at home.”

As Liz says, the only thing that we can do is to get up every single day and do our very best with who we are and what we have. To do what we can. To try to do better. And when we, inevitably, fall short, to pick ourselves up and carry on. We all want to live our best lives, so go for it. Aspire - but mitigate that aspiration with self-forgiveness. And make a promise to do ourselves no harm on our aspirational paths. Ultimately, being kind and understanding to ourselves, throughout our life journey, will be so much more productive than continually beating ourselves up. Our greatest challenge in life is to accept and, eventually, learn to love who we are, unconditionally. That is the one and only true "key" to happiness.

"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us."

— Marcel Proust

heaven on earth

Librarie Galignani, Paris

P.P.S. I forgot to mention that I am onto my fourth/fifth book. After Foreign Tongue - which I loved except for the slightly disappointing ending - I started on another French novel, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, which I received as a Christmas present from my lovely father-in-law (I say father-in-law, but what I really mean is my longterm boyfriend's father; father-in-law is easier). It is very funny and interesting - but as it happened, I was about one-quarter of my way through when I discovered what is probably now one of my favourite places in the world, Librarie Galignani (a librarie is a bookstore in French) on the rue de Rivoli, as I was walking home from the Louvre. And, of course, I couldn't help but to buy a few more books (although how I will fit them into my suitcase, I have no idea), including Elizabeth Gilbert's newly released Committed, which I just had to start straight away and, of course, I am now captivated. I started Eat, Pray, Love with an unfairly cynical attitude, but then I reached the Bali chapter (after skipping most of the India chapter, sorry Liz) and I fell in adoring love with her writing style, worldview and Liz herself. I don't agree with everything she says but I so relish reading her cogent arguments and ideas. She also makes a very compelling case for legalising gay marriage - as does this New York Senator, Diane J. Savino:

To quote a wise man (Josh Thomas, comedian): "If you don't like the idea of gay marriage then don't marry a gay. It really is that simple".

NB: I discovered the video via Jason Mraz's blog Freshness Factor Five Thousand which I read regularly for his insightful thoughts and inspiration :)

things that inspire me

These things warm my heart.

• Joshua Radin

His music is just so incredibly heartfelt and beautiful - here is "Today", which he sang at Ellen deGeneres and Portia de Rossi's wedding (and will be playing at mine).

"Closer" is another favourite of mine, if I had to listen to one musician for the rest of my life it would be this man.

• Miss Dior Cherie

This tv commercial by Sofia Coppola is so pretty and refreshing.

It never fails to make me smile or long to don a pretty pastel dress and ride a bicycle around Paris.

• Frankie magazine

One of my favourite Australian magazines, this bi-monthly inspires me to look outside the box and take pleasure in the small things in life.

http://www.frankie.com.au/

• Elias Tahan

This photographer captures the most captivating, poignant images of women.
http://www.eliastahan.com/

• Scrubs

Scrubs is one of the only shows that can make me literally laugh out loud, and I love that it can also make me cry.

• Tim Minchin

Tim Minchin is my favourite comedian in the world, he is just so intelligent and hilarious (as is everybody from Perth, Western Australia!)

Here is my favourite skit of his, a nine minute beat poem entitled "Storm".

Religious belief ≠ meaning or morality.

• Adrian Grenier

Need I say more? (Click to zoom in and truly appreciate his undeniable sexiness.)

(Photographed by The Sartorialist)

• Elizabeth Gilbert

I loved her book, but I love her even more in this lecture she gave about creativity.

• Viral YouTube videos

Have you noticed that viral YouTube videos are always the ones that can't help but make you smile?

The wedding dance to "Forever", Christian the lion, Susan Boyle - the fact that all of these are positive and uplifting makes ME smile and restores my faith in humanity considering all the ugliness that is unleashed via the internet.

Forever

Christian the lion (gosh, this one gets me every single time!)

Plus a recent one-take amateur music video by university students in Quebec.

• Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta

I read this book when I was 11 and it changed my life. Every young girl should read this (I still read it once a year).

It's about being yourself, standing up for what you believe in, the profound impact of family and the importance of forgiveness.

It is just as relevant as it was when it was written almost 20 years ago (back when The Wiggles were The Cockroaches).

• Barack Obama

I adore this man and I don't care what anybody says - he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.

The world will not change overnight but he has brought so much hope for peace and that is an achievement in and of itself.

Martin Luther King won the award a year after his "I have a Dream" speech - a time when the fight for civil rights was far from achieved.

Alfred Nobel established the prize in 1895 for "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses" - the prize is awarded, not for lifelong achievement, but to the one who has done the most to create an atmosphere of peace and reconciliation over the past year.

As Desmond Tutu eloquently put it: “it is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama’s message of hope”.

(Source: Greg Beals, "Why Obama Deserves the Nobel Peace Prize")

• 500 Days of Summer

My single favourite movie: it makes me smile, cry and think.

Love is real, love is complicated.

If you liked the movie, you will love this (starring Zooey and Joseph).

• Garance Doré

She is my favourite blogger: so talented, beautiful, humble, funny and honest.

Make sure you read what she writes as well as take in her breath-taking photographs and gorgeous illustrations.

http://www.garancedore.com/

• So You Think You Can Dance

I don't know why I love it, I just do.

It makes me happy!

Kayla and Kupono, "Gravity" by Sara Bareilles

• Jack's Life Lessons

I don't know where I found this or where it comes from but I love it as a light-hearted life mantra.