Eat, Pray, Love

I found this hilarious, even though I have only read the book and have yet to see the movie.

Bleat, flay, loathe ... one man's search for God on a Cineplex screen

By Pete McMartin, Vancouver Sun August 24, 2010


The other night, I was weeping on the marble-tiled floor of my bathroom in my 4,000-square-foot suburban home with oak floors and granite kitchen countertops and four-car garage and in-ground swimming pool, praying to God. I was praying to God because my life was in ruins, and by that I mean my spiritual life was in ruins, not my material life, because I had sold short when the market went belly-up and made a killing. Still, what's money? Can money buy you happiness and enlightenment? No, unless you have really, really a lot of money.


Because I thought God would appreciate some humour before I got to the dramatic part, I told Him I was a big fan of His work, which I thought was a good line and would look good in print if, say, one day I happened to get a book deal about my search for spiritual enlightenment. But I'm funny like that. Funny, in that sort of way that makes people want to slap me hard on the side of my head. It's one of my best qualities, of which I have many.


Anyway, weeping. There I was on the floor blubbering away and I cried out to God, "God, what am I doing here?" Why was I trapped in this life with a lovely wife and three beautiful children and a six-figure income? Why was I being punished so?


And God, I swear, spoke to me. Or possibly it was the Xanax talking, I'm not sure. But the voice, which sounded like Morgan Freeman's, said, "Pete, get up and go to bed. Then have a couple of drinks. Then maybe take a hot shower because, frankly, you could use one. Then go to your local Cineplex and see Eat Pray Love, starring the luminous Julia Roberts. It will show you the way to spiritual enlightenment. And go to a Tuesday matinee, it's half price."


I did as God said. I went and saw Eat Pray Love. In the theatre were fellow spiritual enlightenment seekers, who, as it turned out, were mostly pairs of women of a certain age, and by a certain age I mean the post-hottie one. Still, I felt a kinship with them. We were all seeking spiritual enlightenment and balance in our lives, though maybe in the interest of more balance they could have started by not getting extra butter on their popcorn. But I quibble.


The movie started with aerial shots of southeast Asian rice paddies, with Julia, in voice-over, talking about female Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees who, chances are, had seen their families and children murdered and who had been raped or wounded, but who, when they went for counselling, Julia said, all they could talk about were boys and romance. "This is how we are," Julia said of all women, and I thought: How true. How true.


Then Julia appeared onscreen, visiting an old wise man in just the cutest little Balinese village. The wise man was named Ketut, and he had, like, three teeth. He looked like an Asian Mickey Rooney. Toothless Asian wise men living in cute villages, of course, know so much more about life than pale materialistic Westerners, though you have to wonder why so many Asian villagers continue to try to sneak into North America by boat. Don't they realize what they have?


Ketut reads her palm and predicts a whole lot of stuff will happen to Julia, who all the while has this look of concern on her face, despite being married to Billy Crudup and living in a restored Westchester mansion and having a successful writing career and having a black girlfriend, which is totally cool and shows that Julia can be comfortable with people of all hues and not just little Asian ones. When she gets back to North America, her husband cruelly suggests they go on vacation to Aruba, and Julia, rightfully enraged at this, says, "I don't want to go to Aruba. I don't want to be married."


And that's that. And then she meets James Franco, who has been miscast in the film as an actor, and she moves in with him, only to grow tired of him after they fold too many clothes together in a laundromat. She ends up one night on the floor beside his bed and she's crying and she says, "I don't know how to be here." Why she is lying on the floor instead of in bed is never explained, but usually with me it's because I've had too much to drink.


Then she travels to countries that all start with "I" -- Italy, India and Indonesia, but not Iraq because that would totally be a drag. Along the way, she eats, prays and loves, which explains the title, and says things like:

"I'm having a relationship with my pizza."

"Pain is a gift. Pain is the road to transformation."

"It won't last forever. Nothing does."


Again, all so true, though I was beginning to think that one thing that would last forever was the movie. In the end, though, Julia finally finds happiness with Javier Bardem, who is not quite as creepy as he was in No Country for Old Men.


I walked out of the theatre a changed man. I totally got the message of the movie, which was: "To find spiritual fulfilment and love, if you don't like where you are, be somewhere else, and bring travellers cheques."


So, on the way home, I decided I would fly off to Bali, or possibly Vegas, and look for love and spiritual enlightenment. When I got home, I went up to my wife and I said:

"I don't know how to be here any more."

That's when she hit me in the face with a frying pan, and I saw God.