I actually really, really liked the book…which means I hated the movie more than you, I promise.
The book’s narrator, while utterly self absorbed as any 30something American, at least has the opportunity, through the narrative style, to discover and explain exactly why she’s so self absorbed, which makes her (to me, anyhow) less annoying than the movie twit. And then she gets over it, which is, y’know, personal growth. I didn’t see the movie Liz change one iota from beginning to end.
They left out a *lot *of the stuff that makes her less annoying, including Wayan’s woes (she was actually in pretty dire straits by the time Liz found the means to get her a house, and then she tries to scam Liz out of even more money; Liz finding the backbone to deal with her friend turning scam artist is about the greatest expression of growth in her tale).
Oh, and Phillipe was cast way too young while Liz was cast way too old. Yeah, I know Javier is the hottest thing since toast right now, but I didn’t buy him as “old enough to be her dad” for a moment. Seems unimportant, but again, a big part of Liz’s growth is accepting love from someone she never would have considered “datable” early on in her journey. For personal reasons, I can relate in a huge way, and was sorry to see that excised from the film.
Wow. That explains why everyone who seemed to like this book also enjoyed The Secret. They’re constantly channeling love and energy, sucking up bad vibes, torpedoing wishes into the universe…
This is precisely why I have no desire to see the movie. I loathe how movies tend to butcher the original story, especially when it comes to leaving out the difficult-to-translate-to-film backstory.
Right and there’s that, too. I pretty much write off any movie she’s in. I probably shouldn’t. I’m sure she’s done some good films, but I really don’t like her and don’t want to pay money to look at her.
The company I work for has a huge deal with Sony and EPL is our major campaign right now. Oy vey. We each got a copy of the book (mine’s still sitting, unopened, on the bottom of my drawer) and were given passes to an exclusive screening during working hours and you could (literally!) not pay me to see this dreck.
If I’d heard about the book when it came out I don’t recall, but just the synopsis of it made me want to run far, far away. None of the few women here that went to see it liked it all, except for my spoiled, self involved co-worker who, while not actually liking it cannot see why everyone thinks the main character is an annoying, self indulgent cunt. Go figure.
For my company’t sake I hope the movie and our part in it is a huge success, but I personally won’t be contributing to it.
I was invited by a few friends to see this movie, and I thought, it’s got to be better than staying at home by myself, right? Nope. Not one bit. Officially the worst movie I’ve seen in a long, long time.
I should have known after I got through the “Eat” segment of the book but just couldn’t give a fuck about the latter two segments, and abandoned it unfinished …
Just reading a synopsis of the book I was seriously annoyed, if not offended. Yes, everyone can have problems, even if they’re rich and whatnot, but damn. Reading about some woman finding enlightenment on an all-expenses-paid retreat in India sounded completely pointless. Who isn’t going to feel relaxed, loving, and “spiritual” (whatever the fuck that means) when removed from all worldly concerns for an extended period.
As a student of mindfulness, I found that quite obnoxious. For most people, we need a way to seek enlightenment amidst workaday life, not on a luxurious vacation.
Then I found out that Siddha Yoga is something of a cult. I have an acquaintance who says her sister has been pretty much cut off from her family after getting involved with them. Sounds like the Hindu version of Scientology, with lots of celebrities and rich bitches getting all excited, while some really shady dealings go on at lower levels.
If you want engaging personal growth achieved against gorgeous backgrounds, go rent Enchanted April. It sounds like it’s infinitely better than this garbage.
I completely agree with WhyNot’s post (which is not unusual in the grand scheme of things around here). The book does contains some very interesting (and thought-provoking) ideas interspersed with the “I’m a privileged white woman with money” narcissism and there is definitely a lot of the book in which she does recognize that (and some in which she doesn’t).
That having been said, I have absolutely no intention of seeing the movie. The book wasn’t a travelogue, it was a discussion of various thought processes in the author’s year, and I’m not interested in seeing Julia Roberts in pretty places.
I understand there will be a nature film about mantises called Pray, Love, Eat.
My son-in-law’s mother has found a boyfriend, which means she won’t try to drag my wife to it. As for me, I’m not seeing it unless I’ve got two robots at my side.
So, in the book, do they explain why she dumped the “loving husband”? That always bugged me in the movie “Bridges of Madison County”…the husband seemed like a decent, if not exciting, man, and I couldn’t see why everyone was rooting for Streep’s character to leave him for the traveling photographer who really shouldn’t have taken his shirt off.
No, she doesn’t. There’s a passage in the early part of the book, IIRC, where she finds herself on the bathroom floor, sobbing at the thought she doesn’t want to be married anymore. Another IIRC – he contested the divorce. In the book she embarks on the trip during the process.
Well, not exactly. She started her trip after her divorce was final, and in the book at least (haven’t seen the movie) she holds back from saying anything nasty about her husband. She was willing for him to have the house, the money from her previous writing, and everything else they had, and only started to fight when he demanded a piece of all her future writings.
And in my Act of Steely Courage for the day, I am going to state, defiantly and with just a hint of wind brushing the hair from my brow, that I liked the book. Quite a lot, actually. I don’t hold someone on a journey of self-discovery, particularly in the wake of a shattered marriage, to task for being self-absorbed.
I am apprehensive about seeing the movie (although I might just, especially to enjoy the lovely locations) for just the reason that WhyNot articulates above – I abhor when what I most liked about a book gets lost in showing where the book had taken place. For this reason, I took ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ off my to-see list when I saw from the ads that Sayuri had her hair down, after all the book had done to show the elaborately crafted world of the geisha, including the intricate and extremely challenging and painful hair styling. What’s the point of a film, if the movie completely skips over the interior details of the book?
I thought she made it fairly clear in the book that it really - really - wasn’t him, it was her. In the divorce thing, I mean. She didn’t hate him, nor was there abuse or anything, just a growing awareness that she didn’t want the things out of life she thought she wanted. I believe she apologizes, genuinely, to him, about the whole thing. It’s not until he starts getting aggressive (and greedy?) that she begins to push back a little, but yes, she still gives him everything they earned and everything she earned, just in order to get out of the marriage, and the whole thing takes well over a year of lawyer’s and fees and tension before its all resolved.
(Yeah…I probably liked the book for rather personal reasons that have little to do with the qualities of the book, and more with how much my own life and inner life reflects Liz’s.)
She’s very well aware (again, book not movie) that she’s a self absorbed “poor little rich girl”, and much of what she wants to figure out is how not to be that anymore. Even rich people have spiritual crises. Perhaps *only *rich people do, as Maslow’s hierarchy prevents us from worrying too much about spiritual growth when our bellies are rumblin’.
And part of what I loved loved loved about the book was how horrible her experiences learning to meditate are. It really rang true - her notions of the beautiful spiritual perfection of the Ashram smacking up against the reality of sitting and meditating for hours a day. I’ve never before found a spiritually profound book which really articulated how f’ing boring and hard meditation really is! Like Liz, when I try to meditate, I want to chew my own leg off. Shame, as Richard from Texas* would say, that I’m the only one that’s ever had that problem.
*Aaaaand, back to movie bashing…another horribly miscast role. He was too…small. Physically, yes, but also in spirit. Bleh.
I loved the line in the book where she’s complaining to a meditation teacher at the ashram that she’s having trouble with the physical discomfort of sitting and also with the monkey mind thing, and he says, dryly “It’s a shame that you’re the only person in the world to ever have this problem.”
So much of the humor in the book is her poking fun at her own entitlement and sense of preciousness.
