Eat Pray Love

Eat Pray Love is a 2010 American biographical romantic drama film starring Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert, based on Gilbert's 2006 memoir of the same name. Ryan Murphy co-wrote and directed the film, which was released in the United States on August 13, 2010. It received mixed reviews from critics, but was a financial success, grossing $204.6 million worldwide against a $60 million budget.
Premise.
Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having – a husband, a house, a successful career – yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused, and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy, the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Indonesia.
Production.
"Eat Pray Love" began principal photography in August 2009. Filming locations include New York City (United States), Rome and Naples (Italy), Delhi and Pataudi (India), Ubud and Padang-Padang Beach at Bali (Indonesia).
Hindu leaders voiced concern over the production of the film and advocated the use of spiritual consultants to ensure that the film conveyed an accurate reflection of life in an ashram. Both Salon.com and "The New York Post" have suggested that Gurumayi Chidvilasananda was the guru featured in the film and in the book by Elizabeth Gilbert on which the film was based, though Gilbert herself did not identify the ashram or the guru by name.
The two Balinese lead characters (Ketut Liyer and Wayan) are played by Indonesian actors Hadi Subiyanto and Christine Hakim, respectively.
Reception.
Box office.
The film debuted at #2 behind "The Expendables" with $23,104,523. It had the highest debut at the box office with Roberts in a lead role since "America's Sweethearts" in 2001. During its initial ten-day run, revenue grew to a total of $47.2 million. The competing film "The Expendables" features Eric Roberts, Julia Roberts's brother, and the box office pitted Roberts versus Roberts. "Hollywood.com" commented that "sibling rivalry is rarely as publicly manifested" as this. The film, produced on a $60 million budget, grossed $80,574,382 in the United States and Canada and has a worldwide total of $204,594,016.
Critical response.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 36% approval rating based on 203 reviews with an average rating of 5.18/10. The site's critical consensus reads "The scenery is nice to look at, and Julia Roberts is as luminous as ever, but without the spiritual and emotional weight of the book that inspired it, "Eat Pray Love" is too shallow to resonate." On Metacritic, it has a score of 50% based on reviews from 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F.
Wesley Morris of "The Boston Globe" gave the film 3 out of 4 stars while writing "Is it a romantic comedy? Is it a chick flick? This is silly, since, in truth, it’s neither. It’s simply a Julia Roberts movie, often a lovely one." "San Francisco Chronicle" film critic Mick LaSalle overall positively reviewed the film and praised Murphy's "sensitive and tasteful direction" as it "finds way to illuminate and amplify Gilbert's thoughts and emotions, which are central to the story".
Negative reviews appeared in "The Chicago Reader", in which Andrea Gronvall commented that the film is "ass-numbingly wrong", and "Rolling Stone", in which Peter Travers referred to watching it as "being trapped with a person of privilege who won't stop with the whine whine whine." Humor website "Something Awful" ran a scathing review. Martin R. "Vargo" Schneider highlighted several aspects of the film that he considered completely unrealistic. Political columnist Maureen Dowd termed the film "navel-gazing drivel" in October 2010.
The BBC's Mark Kermode listed the film as 4th on his list of Worst Films of the Year, saying: ""Eat Pray Love"... vomit. A film with the message that learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all, although I think the people who made that film loved themselves rather too much."
In "The Huffington Post", critic Jenna Busch wrote:
In the Italian newspaper "La Repubblica", journalist Curzio Maltese wrote:
The film received generally negative reviews in the Italian press.
Merchandising.
Marketers for the film created over 400 merchandising tie-ins. Products included "Eat Pray Love"-themed jewelry, perfume, tea, gelato machines, an oversized Indonesian bench, prayer beads, and a bamboo window shade. World Market department store opened an entire section in all of their locations devoted to merchandise tied to the movie.
The Home Shopping Network ran 72 straight hours of programming featuring "Eat Pray Love" products around the time of the film's release. The decision to market such a wide range of products, hardly any of which were actually featured in the film, brought criticism from the "Philadelphia Inquirer", "The Washington Post" and "The Huffington Post".