Julia Roberts stars as an American who leaves her husband, finds a boyfriend, leaves her boyfriend and then travels to Italy, India and Indonesia to “discover” herself. There’s no explanation of why she was unhappy in either relationship, nor of how she can afford these open-ended wanderings.
She comes across as a pampered, fairly self-obsessed individual. That would probably be fine – the film isn’t obliged to create a character you like or identify with – but for the shallow presentation of her journey to enlightenment. There are long, lingering shots that dwell on the foods she eats and the landscapes she passes through. The film fetishes food in a way that’s genuinely intrusive on the narrative. Italians are beautiful people eating beautiful food and speaking a beautiful language, the film suggests – in a woefully simplistic and two-dimensional manner. But if the character loves Italy so much, why does she move on to India?
Most annoyingly of all, she’s forced to make a big decision at the end of the film and she makes the wrong one. It takes a man with no teeth to point out what she should stick with another man (Javier Bardem). So the film shows us that she still lacks wisdom and appears to need men to guide her. So much for being enlightened.
