(2010) Truth will find you if you trust "the quest physics." Or so we're told in director and co-screenwriter (with Jennifer Salt) Ryan Murphy's romantic, around-the-world movie adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir.

Returning to New York City from a trip to Bali - where she'd met medicine man (101 years or 64 years old) Ketut Liyer (Hadi Subiyanto), who'd read her palm and foretold her future of a brief and a long marriage, loss of all her worldly goods before regaining everything - confused and unhappy (but apparently not suffering financial worries) in her marriage to Stephen (Billy Crudup) - while his career plans are as flaky as a croissant, his devotion to his wife is unambiguously genuine and passionate - Liz (Julia Roberts), a writer, files for a divorce.

Earlier her best friend with a new baby Delia Shiraz (Viola Davis), married to Andy (Mike O'Malley), a Caucasian, cautions Liz about motherhood: "Having a baby is like having a tattoo on your face. You kind of want to be committed."

From the heights Liz then dives into the cupped palms of David Piccolo (James Franco), an actor performing in her stage play, who interests her in joining his Hindu meditation sessions. This love affair doesn't satisfy her either, so she plans a three-part journey to Italy, India, and Indonesia to find herself spiritually and put her life balance.

In Rome Liz samples the language and linguini (but permitted no sausage by her landlady) before meeting Sofi (Tuva Novotny), a Scandinavian, and her Italian tutor Giovanni (Luca Argentero), with whose help she becomes more fluent over four months, enjoying the food (pasta, pizza, and wine) and friendships, including Luca Spaghetti (Giuseppe Gandini), who teaches her the Italian art of "La dolce far niente" - the sweetness of doing nothing and not worrying about putting on a few pounds. In the ruins of the Augusteum, which the Roman emperor Octavian Augustus had constructed to house his remains, Liz comes to a realization: "Ruin is the road to transformation."

Leaving behind her new amici, Liz continues on to India for a sojourn at the ashram of David's guru where she stays and prays and washes floors, becoming acquainted with Tulsi (Rushita Singh), a 17-year-old girl who expresses antipathy toward her upcoming marriage. Also there Richard (Richard Jenkins), a bossy, critical Texan spouting aphorisms about quieting her soul and emptying her mind to receive the universal love waiting to fill her, calls her "Groceries" for her appetite at meals.

"You're going to have to learn to select your thoughts the same way you select your clothes every day," he advises: "Now that's a power that you can cultivate. You want to come here and you want to control your life so bad work on the mind, and I don't think you should be trying to control a thing because if you can't master your thoughts you are in trouble forever." Further he counsels: "If you could clear all that space in your mind, you would have a doorway. And you know what the universe would do? Rush in," to which Liz replies: "Do you always talk in bumper sticker?"

Having admonished Liz for not forgiving herself, in an emotionally wrenching scene he eventually shares his own harsh story of alcoholism, which cost him his career and family.

Taking away an understanding that "God dwells within you as you," Liz returns to Bali a year after her first visit where she makes re-acquaintance with Ketut, who provides her with additional spiritual instruction; gets run off the road (to ruin?) on her bicycle by Felipe (Javier Bardem), a Brazilian import-exporter, driving a Jeep, who will turn into her transformational champion ("Balance is not letting anyone love you less than you love yourself"); and receives first-aid ("You have not had sex in a long time; I can tell by your knees") from another divorcee, Wayan Nuriasih (Christine Hakim), who with her daughter Tutti (which means "everyone" in Italian) become like family to Liz.

In Bali by way of Australia, still grieving after a ten-year divorce, Felipe takes Liz on a tour and introduces her to his 19-year-old son, who also recommends to his father that he forgive himself for the past.

"I'm also really into Phil Collins and Air Supply," Felipe admits to Liz, who replies: "You really shouldn't say things like that out loud." Neither of those, but two of Neil Young's songs appear on the soundtrack.

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Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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