Eat Pray Love (2010)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio & Animation Alternative Version-Director's Cut Featurette-Ryan Murphy's Journey with Eat Pray Love
Rating
Year Of Production	2010
Running Time	134:22
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (76:40)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Ryan Murphy
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Julia Roberts I. Gusti Ayu Puspawati Hadi Subiyanto Billy Crudup Viola Davis A. Jay Radcliff Mike O'Malley Ashlie Atkinson
Case	Amaray Variant
RPI	$39.95	Music	Dario Marianelli

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	No

     A loathsome, self-absorbed woman (Julia Roberts) leaves her doting husband (Billy Crudup) more or less on a whim, heavily influenced by the fortune-cookie ambiguous predictions of a stereotypical Balinese fortune teller. After briefly shacking up with a whiny actor (James "I'm in everything" Franco) and sympathising with his jingoistic Indian guru, Roberts decides to spend a year of her time spread between Italy, India and Bali discovering herself (insert bad joke about looking in the mirror here). Roberts proceeds to prance through the world trivialising a variety of cultures as she experiences them, under the spurious guise of embracing those cultures. She eats a lot and makes friends with "quirky" locals in Italy. She befriends a grump (a questionably cast Richard Jenkins) as she works in an ashram in India. She becomes the willing slave of a fortune teller in Bali, where she also falls in love with Javier Bardem and wrestles with the notion that loving another human being is somehow betraying herself (and miraculously manages to only bump into one dodgy Aussie party animal there). Each actor plays to type and is nearly impossible to differentiate from their public personas, which is particularly baffling as the film is based on a memoir and as such there should be a wealth of information to build believable characters from.

     Beyond the unforgivable cinematic crime of expecting the audience to empathise with a despicable woman, Eat, Pray, Love shamelessly and transparently attempts to manipulate the audience into feeling alright with doing so. Possibly the most obvious case being a montage late in the film trying to make out that the husband Roberts has left early in the film has managed to meet a new partner and have a child within significantly less than 12 months, much of which time he is also depicted as desperately trying to win Roberts back. The exotic locations at which the film was shot should have led to some beautiful scenery and landscape photography, however there is little in the way of beautiful imagery here (some nice locations, though so-so imagery) and very little that could not have been achieved on a Hollywood back lot with inserts of stock footage.

     Clocking in at around 135 minutes for the theatrical cut, and 140 for the directors cut (yes, this reviewer had to pain his way through this movie twice), Eat, Pray, Love is a slog. The film moves at an uneven pace, seeming particularly (and unnecessarily) long in parts. In particular, many of the Italian sections add nothing to the character development and are completely tangential to the main plot. Though this reviewer is not really of the target demographic for the film, his wife certainly is and his best indication of interest the film sparks in that target demographic is the target demographic fell asleep on both viewing attempts.

     From a technical standpoint the film is competently produced, but no amount of technical competence can make up for the bloated, self-important mess of the story.

Video

     The film is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect and is 16x9 enhanced.

     The image generally looks good. The image is clear and sharp, with a fine level of film grain noticeable. There is a decent level of shadow detail in the image although the blacks are slightly on the light side. The colours otherwise look decent. Moderate edge enhancement is noticeable throughout and is occasionally distracting, as it makes a number of scenes that feature picturesque backdrops look artificial. Mild mosquito noise if visible from time to time, though it will only distract the fussiest of viewers. There is no sign of noticeable macro blocking or film artefact in the transfer.

     The film features optional English subtitles for the hearing impaired, which appear to be reasonably accurate and well timed based on a portion sampled.

Video Ratings Summary

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Shadow Detail
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Audio

     The film features an English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kbps) audio track and English Descriptive Audio 2.0 Dolby Digital tack.

     The audio is clear and well mixed. The dialogue is at a good level in the mix and in good sync with the video. The film features a lot of folksy rock songs from Neil Young and Eddie Vedder, along with a score that matches those numbers quite well.

     The surrounds are used modestly, adding environmental audio throughout. The subwoofer barely registers. Although it is nothing terribly spectacular, the film doesn't really call for anything more.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
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Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Director's Cut

     An even-longer director's cut of the film is included, which will cost around 5 minutes more of your life than the theatrical cut (that seems an appropriate turn of speech given the ethos of the film) without adding anything of particular note to the film.

Ryan Murphy's Journey with Eat Pray Love Featurette (4:09)

     Director Ryan Murphy waxes on about his spiritual journey in making the film. Blergh.

Soundtrack Advertisement

     Apparently it is considered a "special feature" to include a single page of text advertising the film's (admittedly far better than the film deserves) soundtrack. WTF?

    The Region 4 edition is identical to its Region 1 and Region 2 counterparts in terms of content, save for the subtitles available for the feature. Each other Region includes 2 or 3 foreign subtitle tracks not found on the Region 4 edition and most include a French language track. The Blu-ray editions of the film additionally offer two extra making-of featurettes and a music video.

     An overlong, self important drama that celebrates one loathsome woman's pursuit against rationalism.

     The audio and video quality is decent without being particularly noteworthy. The extras are negligible.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall