Last updated on December 7, 2016 by Liza Hawkins
I have a confession to make.
Eat, Pray, Love is sitting on my bookshelf, collecting dust, unread past the middle of “Pray.” Unlike the woman at the bookstore, I haven’t grown bored of the book. I just ran out of time after vacation in early August, with all the other mayhem life brings. I will finish it; that’s a promise.
In the mean time, however, I gave in to the impulse to see the movie version – and it was pretty good! I happen to like Julia Roberts, and there’s a lot of Julia in this movie, so for those that don’t…well…you might not enjoy it as much.
Similar to the book, Italy was an eat-fest full of plate after plate of pasta and other loveliness. But even with all that carb-centered wonderment happening, I still think the movie failed to make you as hungry as the book did. The pizza that she went to Naples for, in the book it was a BIG deal. I really, really wanted an entire pie for myself slice after reading about it. In the movie it barely took up five minutes of screen time. I suppose that’s why I tend to like the book version more than the movie version of stories in most cases.
Having said that, there’s one part in the movie that I can’t stop thinking about, and it’s a really small part, and perhaps the best food-related scene in the movie (and by “best” I mean funniest). It’s when Richard from Texas tells Groceries (aka Liz) that she could use a thumbs up after she starts spiraling back into an ugly depression over continued failed romance. Being that they were in India, my initial thought was that he was offering her some sort of comfort/meditation nudge that he named “thumbs up,” but I was wrong. Ha-ha-ha….
Cut to the next scene and Richard from Texas and Groceries are sitting outside of a cafe, getting ready to share a….
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| THUMS UP |
Okay, if you’re not laughing then either you’ve not seen the movie, or you don’t appreciate simple humor like I do. At the end of the day, this movie was entertaining, and I felt like the actors did a pretty good job. Oscar-worthy? Perhaps not, but I don’t regret paying matinée prices to see it.
