Eat! Pray! Love!
This is one of my favorite movies and I am going to write about this today. Let’s start the journey to Italy, India and the amazing Bali.
A spiritual journey is a quest for a greater awareness of the sacred in daily life, a deeper sense of meaning and purpose, a more vital connection to those we love, and a fuller response to our world — both its problems and its delights. Throughout history, people looking for spiritual renewal have undertaken pilgrimages to sacred sites. They have set out with great seriousness and high hopes for the energizing of their faith.
In the movie when we first encounter Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts in a nuanced performance) in New York City, she is a successful journalist with a disastrous personal life. Her eight-year marriage to the sweet but vocationally wayward Stephen (Billy Crudup) has broken up but he doesn’t want to get a divorce. She begins an affair with David (James Franco), a handsome actor who is a devotee of a woman guru in India. Liz feels a mixture of regret and guilt when she examines the unsatisfying dimensions of both relationships.
After plunging into a hole of depression, Liz turns to God in prayer and asks for guidance. She fondly remembers the advice of Ketut (Hadi Subiyanto), an Indonesian medicine man who told her that she is very lucky and that she worries too much. Liz decides to set her anxieties about the future aside and take a year abroad spending four months each in Italy, India, and Bali. She decides she needs to be “unnerved,” to go someplace where she can “marvel at something.” In other words, she wants to transform her life. Her friend and editor (Viola Davis) tries to convince her that such a trip is nothing more than running away from her discontent and that it won’t solve anything. Sometimes even those closest to us who have our best interests at heart are unable to understand our needs and choices.
Before heading off to Italy, Liz studies Italian and loves the language. It is a sign of her delight in words and her openness to other cultures. In Rome, she meets Sofie (Tuva Novatny), a Swedish fellow-traveler who is seeking adventure and love. Liz also falls under the sway of her Italian tutor (Luca Argentero) and his friend Luca Spaghetti (Giuseppe Gandini), who teaches her “the sweetness of doing nothing.” He contends that Americans are an unhappy people because they work too much and do not know how to relax and let go; they know all about “entertainment” but nothing about “pleasure.” Despite the delights of savoring Italian cuisine, Liz plunges into loneliness and guilt over her affair with David. She writes him and ends the relationship. As she prepares to leave Italy, Liz enjoys an American-style Thanksgiving in the company of her new friends, whom she considers to be family now. She learns that the spiritual practice of gratitude can be a healthy antidote to regret.
In the next scene, Liz is in a taxi hurtling through a crowded Indian city on her way to a Hindu ashram in a remote rural village. Much to her dismay, she learns that the guru she has come all this way to see is in New York. Liz is left to struggle with her monkey mind as she tries to meditate. While scrubbing the temple floors as a part of her seva (service), she meets Tulsi (Rushita Singh), a 17-year-old Indian girl who is upset about her upcoming arranged marriage to a rich young man not of her choosing. Liz draws close to her through the spiritual practice of listening.
Liz travels to the tiny Hindu island of Bali on the last leg of her trip. She wants to find some balance between the worldly pleasure of Italy and the spiritual devotion of India. She reconnects with Ketut who wants to make her his protégé by having her copy his teachings in a book. He is pleased by the new radiance in her face and the lack of anxiety she demonstrates. Liz also meets Wayan (Christine Hakim), a medicine woman who proves to be a very important person in her emotional education.
All throughout her spiritual journey, Liz learns from women who mirror back to her reflections of herself. She sees them as soul mates and teachers who help her in the process of letting go of her worry, guilt, and inability to forgive herself for the errors of the past. Women watching them are sure to have similar moments of connection.
“It is no small matter to be a witness to another person’s life story. By listening with compassion we validate each other’s life, make suffering meaningful, and help the process of forgiving and healing to take place.”
