Eat, Pray, Love Movie Good – Book Is So Much Better
Those of you who follow my blog will remember my recent review of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love book. (You can click here to read it.) I found the book facinating. I compared it with Eckhart Tolle’s books as a resource for increasing your conscious contact with the divine.
Gilbert is hands down a talent at vividly narrating her mental thoughts, emotions and confusion. The banter and chatter in her head is so clear you’d swear you were hearing them firsthand through your IPOD head phones.
She described her journey from divorce, confusion and spiritual bankruptcy to conversion / transformation / state of balance she had never before experienced. By making use or her mental discourse style (which by the way is hilarious at times) which matures over the course of her journey, we see, feel, smell and almost taste, especially in Italy and therefore the “Eat” part, her movement towards wholeness and balance.
I went to Julia Robert’s movie version last night with my wife and two daughter and was a bit disappointed. It wasn’t that the movie took too Hollywood an approach. (I’m still seething over what they did the Count of Monte Cristo with it’s Hollywood ending.) It’s that a book about so personal a transformation which occurred so deeply within her is a tough thing to bring to live in motion picture.
A few things you miss. First of all, her relationship with Richard from Texas so completely lacked. He was just as brash in the movie as he is in the book, but in the book we get to see their relationship slowly develop. It moves along too quickly in the movie so we wonder why Gilbert put up with him. I missed out on a lot of the wisdom he imparts on her mainly because I was so upset by the way he treats her and how quickly she comes around to liking him.
They do capture her relationship issues. In a few quick scenes, you size her up as someone who becomes imeshed in relationships loosing herself to these other people.
I do recommend the movie, but don’t miss out and get a copy of the book. It’s a journey everyone should experience and use it to compare with your own life and journey. Everyone should expereince something like this in one form or another during their lifetime.
Hope this helps.
Jorge Lazaro Diaz is the "Original" Career Jockey who started this blog and now serves as the Managing Editor. You'll find he enjoys focusing on professional and personal development articles and frequently covers motivational and spiritual topics.
You can learn so much about this author by clicking here.
I have not yet seen the movie, but I, too, LOVE the book! It is definitely one of my favorites. Some people have commented to me that they did not like the book because she was “self-indulging.” I say, “What’s wrong with that!” Sometimes I believe we don’t allow ourselves to truly feel, experience, and come to know ourselves. Consciousness and love begin within first before they can extend outward. I celebrate Eat, Pray, Love, and Gilbert’s powerful message.
I agree she is self-indulgent. She is also extremely open about her internal experience as she went through all this. How else can you understand what another person experiences and feels?
After watching the movie this weekend, I pulled out my copy of the book and I am again rapped up in her ability to share her experience firsthand. How often do we get a peek into another person’s thinking as they interact with their own depression and loneliness? (That’s one of my favorite scene in the book.)
I’m even luckier than most in that I’ve got the downloaded Audible copy of the book read by Elizabeth Gilbert herself. Her inflections are priceless through out the book.
Another scene you just cannot appreciate in the movie is what goes on in the Ashram rooftop experience after Richard from Texas leaves her there. It was about as well done as it could be for a movie, but her mental discussion during that scene is one you just have to read to appreciate how indepth that experience was for her.
Agreed! I LOVED the book, and I did listen to the audiobook version; it was like taking a walk with Elizabeth Gilbert every day. I laughed out loud and truly identified with her.
I was pretty disappointed with the movie version too. I was most looking forward to the beauty of an Ashram, and that was glossed over.
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