Ugh - is there anything more inherently bothersome than the idea of a well-off, middle-aged white woman going abroad to "find herself"? Jeez. Eat Pray Love, based on the book of the same name by Elizabeth Gilbert, seems purposely designed to outright annoy anybody who considers themselves to be a normal person. Julia Roberts play the self-entitled protagonist here, who comes to exemplify everything that is wrong with a particular brand of shallow human being. So she travels, but she doesn't really travel. Not to broaden her horizons, but to reaffirm all the awful things that she already believed about the world. Then there's all the "New Age" crap that Eat Pray Love tries to make a case for throughout - faux-spirituality; the kind that only your mum's friend who's into crystals and mood rings and star signs can get behind. Totally ridiculous in its casting of Roberts as a "normal woman," it's a tired, smug dirge.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.