# Eat Pray Love (the movie): is Elizabeth Gilbert a \[expletive\] or is it just me? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 1, 2010, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510 "2010-12-01T04:31:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/21 "2010-12-01T09:05:23Z")
I don’t think I’ve seen the word “cunt” on a single sdmb page so many times. Even in the BBQ Pit. It’s in my head now like Hobbes the tiger and “[smock](http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a211/Vendi_girl/Calvin%20and%20hobbes/calvinandhobbes-5.jpg)”. cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/22 "2010-12-01T12:23:47Z")
I stayed far away from this movie because I knew the screenwriters were going to somehow mangle the original story. They always do. EPL is a textbook example as to why one should READ THE BOOK instead of seeing the movie. That plus I cannot stand Julia Roberts. Without even seeing the movie, I’m willing to bet her performance had a lot to do with why people upthread felt the way they did. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/23 "2010-12-01T12:31:58Z")
Absolutely agree that the movie character Liz Gilbert is a self-centered narcissistic cunt. I’m just glad the real life one isn’t, at least sofar as I could glean from The Tome Which Shall Not Be Named. This is why movies about internal process are so very very hard to get right. Has it \*ever \*worked? ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/24 "2010-12-01T13:17:32Z")
I read the book, loved it, understood it/her, and identified with most of it. The movie sounds like a total distortion and I don’t plan to see it. I’m fascinated and appalled by how many people have a strong opinion on the author when they haven’t read the book OR seen the movie! Also not a fan of Julia Roberts. Who has the bigger mouth- her or Angela on Bones? ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/25 "2010-12-01T13:51:50Z")
I haven’t seen the movie or read the book, but read plenty about both. The woman leaving the husband for no good reason and travelling the world? It’s a vehicle for 1) Julia Roberts, and 2) travel fantasy for bored housewives stuck in Podunk, Ohio. Look at that wonderful Julia Roberts, look how rich and beautiful she is, oh, the freedom to just take off to scenic locations and have spiritual experiences and adventures in exotic lands! Elizabeth may not be a good person for dumping her husband, but there are no kids involved and she has the time and resources to go on an exotic journey. Again, a fantasy for women viewers who may have husbands they’ve ‘fallen out of love’ with, but the women viewers are more likely to go to counselling and try to make their marriages work than suddenly take off on a trip to “find themselves”. Aren’t they? I’ve expressed myself badly, but yes, she was self-absorbed and narcissic. Tired of the marriage, so she leaves on her trip to enjoy life? Bad Elizabeth! As long as kids weren’t involved, maybe the husband is better off without the twit. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/26 "2010-12-01T14:21:22Z")
Had a chance to see a free screening _during work hours_; did not go. Have a free copy sitting on the bottom of my drawer; do not want to read. I don’t know if the author is a cunt or not but if so, I don’t think it’s due to the divorce issue. As others have said, people fall out of love. It sucks but it happens and no one is obligated to remain in a situation that makes them unhappy, especially when there are no children involved. I just can’t scrape together any interest in anyone’s, much less a financially independent, privileged person’s “journey of self discovery”. We all have problems; fuck off. My company was heavily partnered with Sony and all I heard about for months was “Eat, Pray, Love” (actually “EPL”, cause we’re cool that way). And all I said for months is "nobody wants to hear about some entitled bitch’s whirlwind tour of exotic places, cuisine and romance when they’re struggling to pay their own damned mortgage. The campaign was not the success they were hoping for. ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/27 "2010-12-01T14:22:50Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > I haven’t seen the movie or read the book, but read plenty about both. The woman leaving the husband for no good reason and travelling the world? It’s a vehicle for 1) Julia Roberts, and 2) travel fantasy for bored housewives stuck in Podunk, Ohio. Look at that wonderful Julia Roberts, look how rich and beautiful she is, oh, the freedom to just take off to scenic locations and have spiritual experiences and adventures in exotic lands! Of course Hollywood would market it as a travel fantasy for bored housewives! That didn’t surprise me in the least. I don’t know why it initially surprised me, though. It’s a very “interior” book in many ways. The actual physical journeys are secondary to what’s going on in her head. For once I thought maybe Hollywood would, you know _realize_ this and therefore make the film into something other than bored housewife Lifetime-type schlock. > [@](#): > > Elizabeth may not be a good person for dumping her husband, but there are no kids involved and she has the time and resources to go on an exotic journey. IIRC the real Elizabeth, at the time, had an advance from her publisher to research her next book (I think she mentions it during a TED talk, but I’m not 100% certain – I do remember reading about it). > [@](#): > > I’ve expressed myself badly, but yes, she was self-absorbed and narcissic. Tired of the marriage, so she leaves on her trip to enjoy life? Bad Elizabeth! As long as kids weren’t involved, maybe the husband is better off without the twit. Calling her a twit misses the whole point. It wasn’t like she had planned to fall out of love. Things happen for all sorts of reasons, some of which we’re not aware of until after the fact. You also cannot predict how one will react. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/28 "2010-12-01T14:52:01Z")
However the author managed to portray herself in Eat Pray Love, she couldn’t possibly have looked as bad as Julie Powell managed in her followup to the similarly fluffy Julie & Julia. I remember my sister, who (heh) ate up Julie & Julia eagerly awaiting Powell’s second book…and that book–_Cleaving_–turned out to be a not so fluffy memoir of how Powell wrecked her marriage with an affair with an old flame. Youch. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/29 "2010-12-01T14:57:25Z")
> [@kiz](#): > > IIRC the real Elizabeth, at the time, had an advance from her publisher to research her next book (I think she mentions it during a TED talk, but I’m not 100% certain – I do remember reading about it). Yes, she conceived the idea for a journey and realized she had no money to pay for it (her money being first tied up by lawyers before her husband agreed to the divorce and then pretty much handed over to him whole cloth as the price of agreeing to the divorce.) So she pitched the book idea to her editor, and they liked it and gave her a loan for it. That’s the one factual error that keeps coming up in the “Liz is a cunt” discussions that I keep wanting to :smack: over. Liz (character) was many things, but “rich” wasn’t one of them, at the time of this story. At least not in any practical, legally allowed to spend the money she owned on paper sense. She was just smart enough to get paid to do what she wanted to do, and took on a huge loan\* from a publisher to write a book about traveling. \*yeah, they call it an “advance”, but it’s a loan - if your book doesn’t sell enough to cover it, you owe it back to the publishing company ---
**Author:** ![The\_Universe\_Lashes\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8797f3/32.png) [@The\_Universe\_Lashes\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Universe_Lashes_Out)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/30 "2010-12-01T15:13:52Z")
“Selfish cunt” might be a little strong, but she is obviously horribly immature if she got married on such a tenuous basis that she could “fall out of love” six years later and have to divorce her husband. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/31 "2010-12-01T15:30:58Z")
> [@HowieReynolds](#): > > “Selfish cunt” might be a little strong, but she is obviously horribly immature if she got married on such a tenuous basis that she could “fall out of love” six years later and have to divorce her husband. Yep, because nobody has ever, in the history of marriage in the world, married someone when they were young, in love, and thought that feeling would last forever. Nobody in the history of the world has ever grown apart from someone in eight years, or changed and grown away from someone else. Never in the history of romantic relationships has someone made such an incredibly selfish and immature decision that she knew there wasn’t a “good enough” reason to leave a marriage that she no longer could participate in fully. Look, I really do not get this attitude. There were no children, and while yes, her husband was hurt, probably dreadfully so, it seems that people are saying “you married him, so suck it up, bitch, and stay in the marriage even though you don’t love him anymore. Have children you don’t want, because that was the expectation.” I guess people really do believe that no one should ever change their minds about anything ever, and no one should ever change their feelings about anyone, ever. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/32 "2010-12-01T16:12:03Z")
This is why women shouldnt write, 90 per cent of the time it is just self absorbed cuntery. Occasional miracles happen, but I hear so do chimpanzees writing Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/33 "2010-12-01T16:19:54Z")
I would love to see the reaction if someone made a movie about a man who up and ditched his wife to party in Italy, spend time at an Ashram in India, and get laid in Indonesia. Somehow I don’t think it would have a lot of female fans. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/34 "2010-12-01T16:26:12Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > I would love to see the reaction if someone made a movie about a man who up and ditched his wife to party in Italy, spend time at an Ashram in India, and get laid in Indonesia. Somehow I don’t think it would have a lot of female fans. Sounds like good porn material, though. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/35 "2010-12-01T16:33:05Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > I would love to see the reaction if someone made a movie about a man who up and ditched his wife to party in Italy, spend time at an Ashram in India, and get laid in Indonesia. Somehow I don’t think it would have a lot of female fans. Exactly. And in the movie she didn’t “fall out of love” with her husband. A fucking voice in her head told her to leave (the movie is full of woo bullshit, and shallow, maturbatory, fake spirituality like that). Plus it isn’t just that she leaves, but that she’s so cavalier, abrupt and unfeeling about it. One day everything’s fine, the next day, “see you later. A voice in my head told me to go eat pasta in Italy, and pretend to meditate in a fashionable, tourist ashram for self-absorbed American rich cunts like me, but first I have to fuck James Franco.” There’s no redeeming value to the character. Everything she supposedly learns has to do with nothing but self-gratification and avoidance of responsibility. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/36 "2010-12-01T16:38:50Z")
Well if nothing else, Elizabeth Gilbert has provided the SDMB with a female target that both men and women can call a cunt all day and night without fear of reprisal. I’ll admit, such a treat is rare, but is it so rare that we have to rally around the moniker even though her greatest crime was divorcing a man she didn’t want to be married to? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/37 "2010-12-01T16:44:12Z")
That wasn’t her greatest crime, it’s her pervasive self-absorbtion and narcissism throught the movie. And like I said, it wasn’t just that she left her husband because she thought a disembodied voice told her to do it (stupid enough all by itself), but that she was so cold and capricious about it. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/38 "2010-12-01T17:12:32Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > That wasn’t her greatest crime, it’s her pervasive self-absorbtion and narcissism throught the movie. And like I said, it wasn’t just that she left her husband because she thought a disembodied voice told her to do it (stupid enough all by itself), but that she was so cold and capricious about it. I actually had a lot of empathy for Billy Crudups’ character. Throughout the movie I was waiting for a flashback to show Gilbert doing something that’s causing her to feel bad about herself like have an abortion or killing someone in a traffic accident. It turns out that having a decent life and having everything a person could want is reason enough to feel guilty. What a pathetic message! ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/39 "2010-12-01T17:16:09Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > took on a huge loan\* from a publisher to write a book about traveling. > \*yeah, they call it an “advance”, but it’s a loan - if your book doesn’t sell enough to cover it, you owe it back to the publishing company Cite that the advance was only a loan in Gilbert’s case? I’ve gotten a number of advances on books, though I doubt with the number of zeroes she got, and my contracts (with several different publishers) never said anything about paying any of it back. A couple of these books never came close to covering the advances, but no publisher has contacted me about returning the “loan.” AFAIK this is standard in the publishing industry. As for the OP–it’s not just you. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510/40 "2010-12-01T17:18:21Z")
I have not read the book or seen the movie. The title itself screams narcissism. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eat-pray-love-the-movie-is-elizabeth-gilbert-a-expletive-or-is-it-just-me/562510.md?page=3)