Eat Pray Love 2010

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: It provides a gorgeous escape, exquisitely photographed and full of female wish fulfillment. Yet it also offers sufficient emotional heft and self-discovery to make you feel as if you've actually learned something. Read more

Kathleen Murphy, MSN Movies: Mostly it's the pleasant company of Julia Roberts that makes Eat Pray Love a benign, sometimes soporific slide into femme fantasy -- a less vulgar shopping trip than Sex and the City 2. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Its span may be global, but its scope is modest, and it accepts a certain superficiality as the price of useful insight. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Try not to hoot when the gaunt Roberts makes a bring-on-the-flab speech to persuade the equally slender Tuva Novotny to eat pizza, even if they get "muffin tops." Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: The book's internal dialogue, that of a good observer with a lively mind, has turned into the extravagantly external and cloyingly earnest quest of a woman in deep distress. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Eat Pray Love is mostly a slog; never giving us a compelling reason why its heroine does what she does, or how she became quite so tiresomely self- absorbed. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: It's all external trappings trying to express internal developments, and the movie's hand-holding stridency just emphasizes the artificiality of its fantasy. Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: Unlike the book, there's no big emotional breakdown; instead, this is a postcard-pretty case of midlife soul-searching. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: At the moment, the only person eating more delectably in Italy is Tilda Swinton in I Am Love. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: Only hard-core fans of Oprah's BFF will be able to stomach this navel-gazing tripe, which posits "me-first" consumerism as the road to happiness. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The film is a fairly faithful transcription of events, even though Liz, as played by Roberts, carries a faint air of entitlement. I'm not sure this could be avoided on screen. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Roberts is the obvious focus here, but she's enough of a pro to get out of the way and let a scene be stolen. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: It may come as a bit of a shock to some that the most interesting turns in the woman-on-a-quest sojourn don't belong to Roberts, luminous though she is. Those are owned by a number of misty-eyed if masculine menfolk. Read more

Adam Graham, Detroit News: An insane fantasy for rich people. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: If only Roberts' warmth, coupled with Javier Bardem's scruffy sexiness as Felipe, were enough to compensate for the folded-map flatness of this production. Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: A heavily idealized journey of self-discovery with a pretty woman (Julia Roberts), pretty scenery and a pretty shallow view of Eastern spirituality. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: It helps that Roberts rides all the turbulent waves with such ease and such grace, that Jenkins knows exactly what to do with his internal churn, and that Bardem can do no wrong. Read more

Karina Longworth, L.A. Weekly: Politics and economics hardly exist; each place is populated chiefly by wise exotics who talk funny (including Richard Jenkins' Texan in the ashram) and exist solely to spout slogans and tell stories that make Liz's problems seem small. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: The film version is pure wish-fulfillment fantasy. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: We're not so much involved in the movie as idly registering it -- eavesdropping, almost, on a conversation at an adjoining table. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's a thin line between "self-aware" and "self-involved" and it's one the movie treads uncertainly. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: A well-meant, if not exactly transcendent, adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's beloved, Oprah-endorsed memoir. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Even if you buy Roberts as an introspective writer (I didn't), there's no real sense of an emotional journey here. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Eat Pray Love isn't a bad movie -- just a spiritually dead one, wearing and wearying. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Lives are messy. A little mess in the movie wouldn't have hurt at all. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: An overlong bore that either mistakenly thinks it's something more than a humdrum romance or has incorporated a variety of pretentions as window-dressing. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: For two decades, Julia Roberts has been a bona fide movie star, and she shines in his gorgeous if overlong travelogue. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: You can see how it would be fun to spend a year traveling with Gilbert. A lot more fun than spending nearly 2.5 hours watching a movie about it. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: The movie left me with the feeling of being trapped with a person of privilege who won't stop with the whine whine whine. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: A minor and superficial summer diversion that offers female viewers not much more than a two-hour escape fantasy. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: It's about something important, the search for meaning and happiness, about finding one's inner life amid the clutter and confusion of modern existence. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: I stopped trusting the movie. Read more

Kristin Tillotson, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The film version's biggest challenge? The road to self-discovery is littered with cliches. Read more

Gail Pennington, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The movie is above all a lovely travelogue, plunging us viscerally into the middle of every country. Read more

Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail: Eat Pray Love is like an overstuffed lightweight suitcase, with little room for us to feel the emotional connections Liz makes with new friends along the way. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Glibly portrays selfishness as a life choice, ranking gluttony on a par with finding God and a life partner. Read more

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: Watching the relationship between Liz and Felipe evolve from a comforting friendship to a love that's both companionable and sexy is gratifying. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: The movie is aware of its own riches; it fills up your plate and dares you not to eat. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Though there are a handful of funny lines, the deeper observations are facile. The whole journey feels like a rich girl gone slumming. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: The food looks great, but the romance is undercooked, and God remains strictly a bit player. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: The film's most crucial constituency -- the book's rabid fans -- are likely to feel well served by Murphy's adaptation, which hews pretty faithfully to Gilbert's story. Read more