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    Eat Pray Love

    Reviewed by
    phl222@

    My girlfriend wanted to see this film. I, being a guy, knew it was one of the "mandatory" films that boyfriends are expected to attend as part of being, well, boyfriends. I had seen the book on the shelves, but never read it, if for no other reason than it was a "girl's" story, a kind of Anne of Green Gables for North American adult women who've grown up with the silver spoon of crass materialism in their mouths, and then wonder why it is they're not fulfilled spiritually, and have lost their connexion to self in the process. This is a story about a person's journey to rediscover themselves. So men who were suckled at the breast of militaristic shoot 'em up movies, and who walk around thinking: “I know who I am, and what life is about”, should see this film if only for some valuable pointers about how the souls of women journey in their lives, and how men also need a reality check in the mirror. Even though I am not Italian, and found Italy can be a frustrating place to travel in, I still loved the scenes set in Italy. The exchange with the men in the barber shop did an excellent job summarizing how life is both perceived and lived as compared to the empty shell of a life in the US. As I watched this film, I could also relate to many of the stages of exploration that the Julia Roberts character went through, having studied eastern philosophy myself. In some respects there was a glossing over some of the uncritical groupie culture around Gurus, as though all is healthy on this front. It's not. Yet what the film does do is give movie goers a whirlwind tour of one woman's quest to re-connect with herself. Given the cinematic challenge of doing so in just two hours, the filmmakers did a pretty good job. And as a man, I have to admit there were a couple of scenes that definitely pulled on the old heart strings. Of course, some guys will cringe, wince and complain and will want mommy to put their M-16 soothers back in their mouths while they squirm in their seats not knowing what to do with a deep feeling. You know the guys who need to drink a case of beer watching sports on television to reassure themselves that the pain of their internal lives is just some temporary angst that can and should simply be ignored, and deadened with more alcohol. And when guys take out their frustrations on the world by tail-gating cars in the passing lane already 20 or even 30 km over the speed limit, swearing at the guy in front to just get out of "their" way, on a public road, you know our society has a problem... I suspect these are the guys who are apt to bad mouth this movie. It’s the only way they know to defend the flaccidness of their worldview. So when you see a movie where people are split, giving it high and low ratings, you know you're at the right place. It's place where the surgeon's knife cuts into the place where a lot of people are still really stuck and have a long way to go before they figure out what it means to be a living human being, one capable of experiencing and relishing love and what life has to offer them in dee p meaningful ways. Not something you can really do when you're obsessed with seeing things getting blown up and people cut in two with guns blazing.

    9
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    phl222@  15.8.2010 age: 50+ 63 reviews

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