Eat Pray Love The Movie

I read a piece in Variety a few months ago that prompted me to send a flurry of emails to my best girlfriends, subject line "WTF?!" I'd had that feeling before, like when I learned Pirate's Booty snacks weren't fat free, or my husband washed and dried my new sweater, creating a cozy little cover-up that would fit the cat. Utter dismay. The article was about Ms. Hollywood herself, Phinnaeas and Hazel's mom (and the third one...Henry?), the ex-Mrs. Lovett...Julia Roberts. She of the thousand-watt smile either had signed on or was talking about or had optioned the rights to play Elizabeth Gilbert in the movie adaptation of Gilbert's book, Eat Pray Love (Sorry, I'm a bit sketchy on the details - I think I may have had a mini-stroke after reading the news). I'll admit, I'm a tad obsessed with with Eat Pray Love and all things Lizzie G. Her Oprah episodes are permanent fixtures on my TIVO, I've read and reread and dog-eared and underlined the book. I continue to listen to the book over and over on cd (narrated by Lizzie G. herself, no less), and I bought a copy for every single one of my friends at Christmas. I even gave them out as prizes at Bunco. I stalk people in Barnes and Noble who I see considering the book, touching them on the arm and saying things like, "it will change your life," and "I wasn't complete until I read this book." I buy extra copies every time Costco restocks, just in case....I consider it an emergency reserve for my soul.



It never occurred to me that it would be made into a movie. It's a "feel" book, not a "plot" book, so it doesn't seem like movie material. I often read books and picture the movie version. Some books scream "make me into a film!" from the moment you open then, almost as if the author was simultaneously drafting the first chapter and crafting a mesmerizing opening shot. A few come to mind...Memoirs of a Geisha, Angels and Demons and it's slightly less attractive twin The Da Vinci Code, most books by Jodi Picoult. Other books are so beautiful on the page that translation the multi-plex destroys their literary heart. Case in point, Simon Birch, the movie version of A Prayer for Owen Meany. I was wary when I first heard it was being made. Then when Ashley Judd signed on to play the mother, I thought the casting was just about right, so maybe they'd get the movie right, too. Then I saw it. Ugh. John Irving should have a standing restraining order against anyone connected to Hollywood. Oliver Platt...really? (And lest anyone point this out to me, yes, I know the Cider House Rules movie was actually very well done....)



But let's save the John Irving discussion for another day and think about this Eat Pray Love casting news. So it's going to be a movie...fine. But I cannot wrap my head around Miss "I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy" playing Lizzie G. Now, the Pretty Woman is talented, I'll give you that, and she certainly has her place in Hollywood...but that place is behind the Mystic Pizza counter or in a bathroom stall at her Best Friend's Wedding or on Hollywood Boulevard in a platinum wig and a micro-mini attached to her tank top by those metal rings my kids use to hold together their math flashcards. Yes, she was good in that movie where she used her boobs to save all those people from contaminated water. (We could have a heated discussion about whether the performance was Oscar-worthy...) But as Lizzie G? As the woman who traveled to three countries to find herself and inspired a revolution of consciousness among women? I don't see it. I can't get past the hair and the teeth and the infectious laugh. Julia plays parts well, but she is still Julia....I find myself watching her and thinking, "wow, Julia's doing a good job in that role," but I don't suspend disbelief and let her become the character. Maybe she's too big a star - too much a marquee name for this type of role. I'd prefer to see a newcomer, an unknown play Lizzie G. But, if that's not possible, then a star with an inner radiance...an inner quality that seeps out...a calm, a peace, an innate Lizzie-ness. And a sense of malleability. The always wonderful Kate Winslet could do a great job. She's on my short list of actors who can make any movie better merely by their presence (see, also, Ed Norton, Daniel Day-Lewis). And I'm probably going to divide people on this one, because she's a love her or hate her kind of woman, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say Gwyneth Paltrow would be lovely. She even looks a bit like Lizzie G., and she's stayed out of the spotlight enough that I don't associate her with any "type" of character. And we all know from that ill-timed picture of her back with the marks from cupping that she, like Lizzie G, explores new frontiers and doesn't stay safely in the mainstream. It would also be a great role for an actor from back in the day. Sort of a reinvention a la John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. How about Elisabeth Shue? Leaving Las Vegas showed us she can act, and she has a softness about her that would complement the story. But Julia Roberts? Do we not remember the debacle that transpired the last time Hollywood paired her with high-profile material (the material, in this case, being Brad Pitt)? I don't want Eat Pray Love the movie to go the way of The Mexican.



And Julia's casting raises another concern...with the Runaway Bride in the lead, who would play the other roles? What about her older lover, Felipe, (now her husband, by the by, for anyone who didn't see Lizzie G. on Oprah)? We're talking about the man who folded and unfolded her, told her she was beautiful over and over again, and to whom she finally opened up after a year of devastation, rebirth and self-realization. I almost can't say it out loud, but what if...good Lord...it's Richard Gere? It just wouldn't work. I never pictured Felipe squinting at Lizzie G. as if he's constipated, while loudly nose breathing. Maybe Liam Neeson could play Felipe, or Peter Skaarsgard, or one of my favorite underused actors, Patrick Stewart (my husband says I have an unnatural attraction to Captain Picard, but that's beside the point...). But I'm afraid that won't happen, because Hollywood will feel the need to make him "pretty."

And the others? Salma Hayak as Wayan the exotic healer? John Goodman as Richard from Texas? The guy from the Mac commercials as her young Indonesian guitar-playing friend Yudhi? Oh, the possibilities are depressing.

So, yea, I'm not all that excited about the woman who played (everyone, in a creepy whisper, now) Mary Reilly stepping into Lizzie G's shoes. But I am thankful for one thing...at least it's not Katherine Heigl.