House of Eratosthenes

I cannot for the life of me see what is inspiration or fantastic about this story. The main character is horribly self-absorbed, egocentric, narcissistic, and weak. The only thing that matters to her, is her; “what can this holy man do for me?”, “what can this Italian family and way of life do for me?”, “what can these geographical destinations do for me?”, “what can a potential life without the husband, with all his faults and mistakes (none of which could be malicious or evil in any way), who I swore myself to, be like?”

If you’d like to counter with something contextually juvenile like “but happiness is important! we have only one life to live!” or “marriage and commitment only works if both partners are happy!” or “spirituality is real! you must find it or you are incomplete!” or “women deserve to be empowered as well as men!” .. don’t. Spare us, please. You make a commitment, you honor that commitment until all avenues are exhausted.

The character wasn’t right for this journey to self-enlightenment, because the character was self-absorbed. Maybe the producers of the film didn’t see this. To people out here in flyover country — yes, the chicks too — everything was a big fat duh. The protagnoist approaches every country, every street and intersection, every other character with an attitude of what’s in it for me, me, me. She is spiritually unfulfilled. Yeah. Exactly. That’s what happens. You need two hours for that? You could have told it in a minute. You could have made it purely antecedent action, thus cutting it down to zero minutes.

Also, Julia Roberts wasn’t right for the role. At one point, the character is described as “hot.” And the story seems right for a woman about 20 to 25 years of age. Watching a woman in her mid-forties try to figure out what life is all about, just looks dumb and silly. Maybe if she was an empty-nester it would make more sense.

In fact, the only way this works is if you think for some reason the character was developed exactly the way she should have been…as a selfish bitch…and the casting director made some phone calls to find an actress for whom this wouldn’t be much of a stretch.

It’s not going to work for a man who’s been divorced, not even a little bit. And unfortunately, there are a lot of guys in my situation: Started barely-adult life in a starter marriage, the wifey brought nothing but champagne tastes for the beer budget, then after a zillion purchases closed with the sales pitch of “on both our incomes we can afford it” she tired of the materialistic lifestyle and took off. When you’ve been through the financial wreckage of a situation like that, this looks like a story of “what happened to her after you saw her hit the road.” You’re supposed to feel sorry for her because something’s missing from her life and she doesn’t know what. Aw…well…yeah that makes me sad, but not in the way you’re thinking…I was envisioning something involving stake-pegs, honey and an anthill.

I wish I was speaking just for myself and my unique history. Wish I was. You know that’s not the case. Even a lot of women relate to it — yes, every now and then a woman gets the shaft. Women do get married to spendthrift it’ll-all-work-out free spirit guys, who have a change of heart when the bills start rolling in and hit the road. And they can see the deadbeat in Julia Roberts’ character — who, like many fictional constructs in movies, never seems to have to pay for anything.

Conclusion: Only those free spirits will enjoy this movie. It’s made for them and only them. It seems to be a very common occurrence with these life-journey movies: For half the audience, it’s a miserable experience, something of a square-peg-round-hole problem. The movie just doesn’t fit and it just doesn’t work. A shallow selfish person lives an unfulfilling life, we see it and we think: Yeah, so?

We seem to have a lot of these kinds of people watching movies, therefore placing demands on what movies will be made later. It’s becoming a big problem. I saw this happen in the late 1970’s to early 1980’s, a lot…I’ll have to think of some examples later, but it was the same thing. Some superficial jerk would wander around from beginning to end, trying to find a more fulfilling life, and the audience would have to take on the burdensome task of using the two hours to figure out the intimate desires and values of this fictional person they didn’t even like.

After I make the list, I’m sure this will bubble up to the top of it as the most loathsome of the lot. When I saw Julia Roberts riding her bike I wanted a big truck to come along and smack her. When I saw her sailing in a boat I wanted a big shark to come up from the depths and devour it. Not because she’s Julia Roberts (although that certainly helped) but because her character was completely execrable and constantly made bad choices.

Thankfully I have not seen this movie. Even the trailers were unbearable. Fortunately my wife has no interest in this movie either so there isn’t even a chance of accidentally seeing a few scenes.

That said. Women tend to like movies that I, for the life of me, cannot understand their appeal.

They all have tropes in common that are as annoying as they are predicable. First is what Roger Ebert calls the “meet cute” wherein they bump into each other (literally) and they end up on the ground with their faces just inches apart. How romantic. Meanwhile in Realityville they would smash their faces together and somebody is getting a chipped tooth.

Second, there’s always two guys vying for the affections of the female lead. Both are handsome and devoted and tall and strong and blah blah blah. One is invariably the “right” choice. He’s a lawyer/doctor/important businessman the other is like a poor but not really poor guy. They go back and forth and blah blah blah she gets engaged to the “wrong’ guy only to change her mind at the last minute and throw caution to the wind and follow her heart with the poor guy. Cue obligitory rushing into his arms scene followed by The Big Wedding scene and credits.

I cannot understand what makes any of this remotely appealing. There must be a database somewhere in Hollywood that automatically generates the script after you plug in the actor/actress variable. This database must be destroyed with hammers.
- Duffy | 01/11/2012 @ 07:54
My theory: chick flicks like Eat, Pray, Love are what Conan the Barbarian is to guys.

Full disclosure: I’ve not seen EPL (being blissfully, gloriously single when it was released), but the trailer tells you all you need to know. As the chicks in the theater swooned, all I could think of was, “Who has the time and money to do something like this?”

The trailer lasted about a minute, but my little mental accountant was already getting overloaded. “Let’s see… first false premise, hot expat yoga instructors go for mid-40s American career women. Ummmm, how do you say ‘sexual harassment lawsuit’ in Thai? Or, really, for mid-40s women in general. The enabling fantasy of all these types of movies is that Older-but-Well-Preserved-Lady-with-Good-Personality will triumph over any one of an army of anonymous airheaded mid-20s hardbodies. Experience suggests this is not the case; ’36-24-36′ beats ‘first in your class at Vassar and the inside track to make partner at the white shoe law firm’ any day of the week.

Next false premise: that anyone short of Warren Buffet has the kind of cash and connections to just pitch their entire upscale-urban lifestyle in their mid-40s and just hit the road, figuring it’ll all work out in the end? That kind of lifestyle is spelled D-E-B-T, and any real person in Julia’s shoes would be looking at $50K in student loans and five times that in mortgage (what’s a Manhattan flat go for these days?). Were I, in my much more modest situation, to hit the road to Mandalay, I’d damn well better stay there (and pray we don’t have an extradition treaty).

Third false premise… you know what? Screw it; I’m hitting the lobby for a $16 popcorn.”

Now, I’m sure every girlfriend I’ve ever had could go nuts on Conan the Barbarian, Die Hard, or any of my other favorite movies in a similar fashion (“false premise number one: you’re not a huge German bodybuilder”)… But here’s the thing: nobody is actually pretending to live in Hyperboria. We know it’s a wish-fulfillment fantasy. That’s the reason no chicks ever appear in action movies, except to get rescued by John McClane (and why very few men ever go to these “120-lb girl kicks everyone’s asses” pseudo-action flicks Hollywood keeps foisting on us). Even if I were to ‘roid up and hulk out down at the local gym, I could never be Wolverine.

And that’s ok. Julia Roberts movies, on the other hand, make their money by all-but-explicitly promising 45-year-old mothers of three that if they just follow their hearts and ditch all their responsibilities, they too can get porked by Russell Brand.
- Severian | 01/11/2012 @ 10:33
Had to laugh after your first three paragraphs.

Yeppers. Life is hard. Relationships are harder. The teeter-totter ride? Prolly not. There is no teeter-totter to marriage. At least, not in mine. There was simply teeter and the encouragement, that we must learn to compromise. Who knew compromise was a one-way street?

This just past Christmas, I gave my sisters Keurig coffee makers. I haven’t had a phone conversation with my oldest sister in more than seven years, although I’ve called her on her birthday each year. (She never was home to pick up.)

Christmas Day I got a call. I had to hand the phone to my son before I said something someone would have regretted. After he ended the call, I asked, “What did you learn?” He said, the gift was more important. My sister. And my gift is more important to her than I am. And your ex-wife? Trust me, you’re a part of her patter every day, every moment. How you failed, how you lacked, how you needed, how you…whatever.

The thing I like about my life now is, it doesn’t matter. I golf with my friends two of three times a week. I’ve a nice business. I’ve clients who trust me, some who have been with me for nearly thirty years. I am developing some pretty good relationships with my two sons, 25 and 23 years old. And there are whole quarters, if not half-years, where I never think about my ex. And then I read this and laugh, because I know that she is thinking about me every day.

Winning!
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- TMI | 01/11/2012 @ 20:56
[…] on eat pray love. Which reminds me, did I ever find out how it turned out? Can’t remember. (See?? Do I […]
- Link Purge « Rhymes With Cars & Girls | 01/12/2012 @ 21:05

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Eat Pray LoveWednesday, January 11th, 2012

Eat Pray Love
Wednesday, January 11th, 2012