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Elizabeth Gilbert's book "Eat, Pray, Love," unread by me, spent 150 weeks on the New York Times best seller list and is by some accounts a good one. It is also movie material, concerning as it does a tall blond (Gilbert) who ditches a failing marriage and a disastrous love affair to spend a year living in Italy, India and Bali seeking to find the balance of body, mind and spirit.

During this journey, great-looking men are platooned at her, and a wise man, who has to be reminded who she is, remembers instantly, although what he remembers is only what she's just told him.

I gather Gilbert's "prose is fueled by a mix of intelligence, wit and colloquial exuberance that is close to irresistible" (New York Times Book Review), and if intelligence, wit and exuberance are what you're looking for, Julia Roberts is an excellent choice as the movie's star. You can see how it would be fun to spend a year traveling with Gilbert. A lot more fun than spending nearly two hours watching a movie about it. I guess you have to belong to the narcissistic subculture of Woo-Woo.

Here is a movie about Liz Gilbert. About her quest, her ambition, her good luck in finding only nice men, including the ones she dumps. She funds her entire trip, including scenic accommodations, ashram, medicine man, guru, spa fees and wardrobe, on her advance to write this book. Well, the publisher obviously made a wise investment. It's all about her, and a lot of readers can really identify with that. Her first marriage apparently broke down primarily because she tired of it, although Roberts at (a sexy and attractive) 43 makes an actor's brave stab at explaining they were "young and immature." She walks out on the guy ( Billy Crudup ) and he still likes her and reads her on the Web.

In Italy, she eats such Pavarottian plates of pasta that I hope one of the things she prayed for in India was deliverance from the sin of gluttony. At one trattoria she apparently orders the entire menu, and I am not making this up. She meets a man played by James Franco , about whom, enough said. She shows moral fibre by leaving such a dreamboat for India, where her quest involves discipline in meditation, for which she allots three months rather than the recommended lifetime. There she meets a tall, bearded, bespectacled older Texan ( Richard Jenkins ) who is without question the most interesting and attractive man in the movie, and like all of the others seems innocent of lust.

In Bali she revisits her beloved adviser Ketut Liyer ( Hadi Subiyanto ), who is a master of truisms known to us all. Although he connects her with a healer who can mend a nasty cut with a leaf applied for a few hours, his own skills seem limited to the divinations anyone could make after looking at her, and telling her things about herself after she has already revealed them.

Now she has found Balance, begins to dance on the high wire of her life. She meets Felipe ( Javier Bardem ), another divorced exile, who is handsome, charming, tactful, forgiving and a good kisser. He explains that he lives in Bali because his business is import-export, "which you can do anywhere" — although later, he explains she must move to Bali because "I live in Bali because my business is here." They've both forgotten what he said earlier. Unless perhaps you can do import-export anywhere, but you can only import and export from Bali when you live there. That would certainly be my alibi.

The audience I joined was perhaps 80 percent female. I heard some sniffles and glimpsed some tears, and no wonder. "Eat Pray Love" is shameless wish-fulfillment, a Harlequin novel crossed with a mystic travelogue, and it mercifully reverses the life chronology of many people, which is Love Pray Eat.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Eat Pray Love (2010)

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language, some sexual references and male rear nudity

133 minutes

James Franco as David

Richard Jenkins as Richard

Viola Davis as Delia Shiraz

Javier Bardem as Felipe

Billy Crudup as Stephen

Hadi Subiyanto as Ketut Liyer

Julia Roberts as Liz Gilbert

Directed by

Ryan Murphy

Screenplay by

Jennifer Salt

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Eat Pray Love Reviews

There’s some love along the way, and a little bit of praying, but it’s the “Eat” in the title that gets the most attention, like a neon sign in the window of an all-night diner.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 16, 2023

Unlike the original source, Eat Pray Love presents a flawless caricature that's on an idyllic, hiccup-free trip in a world full of kind people who are happy to be at the mercy of this lost American tourist. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 21, 2022

A never ending yawn. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jul 19, 2022

Not a good film by any means, but sometimes you need a bad film of exactly this ilk: frothy, silly and as pleasurable as wrapping yourself in a warm blanket.

Full Review | Nov 5, 2021

Without discounting the importance of Gilbert's decision... it can't be removed from its context: it's a story about choosing self over prescribed generic femininity, a world of your own making over the deeply patriarchal American upper-middle class.

Full Review | Jun 9, 2021

Eat Pray Love is more of a romanticized travelogue, rather than a truly transformative one.

Full Review | May 23, 2021

In many ways I don't even consider Eat Pray Love a film. I see it as more akin to a very well made travel brochure.

Full Review | May 19, 2021

This translation to the big screen is dull, boring, and largely unaffecting.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Nov 29, 2020

Wraps it all up infinitely tighter and neater than does Gilbert's book.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 7, 2020

Full Review | Mar 2, 2019

... almost two and a half hours in which [Julia Roberts] displays her charisma... [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 19, 2018

With 6 million readers of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir, clearly, the movie has big shoes to fill. It may not succeed, but Julia Roberts and the film's designers give us a lot to enjoy.

Full Review | Original Score: 6.5/10 | Dec 3, 2017

An engaging but deliberate chick flick at times, Eat, Pray, Love has the quintessential chick flick star at the helm with Roberts, who played the role beautifully...

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Sep 9, 2017

The unexamined privilege, the idealization/exotification of all places east, the canned spirituality, the sensual goddamn spaghetti-it's all so focus-group-tested and Oprah approved and self-perpetuating and embarrassing.

Full Review | Aug 30, 2017

Let's face it. There are some books that should never be made into movies.

Full Review | Aug 11, 2017

This gentle, meditative, well-told tale has a lot to offer.

Full Review | Mar 7, 2017

Eat Pray Love is overlong and quickly becomes tedious. It features narcissistic, inward looking characters of no interest at all and amounts to a very poorly made film.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Nov 9, 2013

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Feb 18, 2012

Liz maybe the most unlikeable character Julia Roberts has ever had to play, not because co-writer/director Ryan Murphy is trying to make her so but because everything the film does pushes her in that direction.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Mar 21, 2011

A seemingly interminable romantic travelogue that feels as though it takes as long to watch as the year-long spiritual quest it depicts.

Full Review | Mar 14, 2011

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Eat pray love — film review.

The film never ventures, even once, into a situation that does not reek of the familiar.

By Kirk Honeycutt

Kirk Honeycutt

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In “ Eat Pray Love ,” Julia Robert’s character, Liz Gilbert, takes a holiday from her miserable life as a well-respected, financially secure New York writer, loved by men she cannot love back and despairing of her own inner emptiness. She travels the world to seek enlightenment, a journey — she never hesitates to tell anyone she meets — outside her own comfort zone. For the viewer though, it’s anything but. The film never ventures, even once, into a situation that does not reek of comfy familiarity.

Of course, the Elizabeth Gilbert memoir on which the movie is based also got criticized for its Western fetishization of Eastern thought and the overly self-conscious nature of this journey — reportedly paid for with a publisher’s advance for the book itself. None of that stopped her memoir from becoming a bestseller translated into 40 languages. So with Julia Roberts making one of her increasingly rare starring appearances and the sensual beauty of Italy, India and Indonesia as backdrop for the romanticized navel-gazing, “Eat Pray Love” should attract a substantial female audience, a demographic ill-served by the summer’s mostly testosterone-fueled movies.

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Eat Pray Love: movie review

In 'Eat Pray Love,' Julia Roberts plays a newly divorced 30-something in search of herself, based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir.

By Andy Klein Film critic

August 13, 2010

Somewhere on its journey to the big screen, “ Eat Pray Love ” – the film adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert ’s bestselling memoir “Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy , India and Indonesia ” – lost not only its marquee-unfriendly subtitle, but even its two commas. It will compensate by inducing a much larger number of comas among its viewers.

For those who missed the book, Gilbert – a successful author increasingly dissatisfied with her life – got a divorce and embarked on a yearlong trip to Italy, India, and Bali in search of enlightenment or balance or some other balm to soothe her unease. She reportedly funded the trip with a hefty advance for the book, thus guaranteeing that she had better learn something knowing and wise, since “Writer scours world for meaning of life... Comes up empty-handed” is not a publisher’s dream pitch for display space at Barnes & Noble .

Julia Roberts stands in for Gilbert here, and her movie star persona overwhelms the character. We never for a minute forget who she is. Liz’s big lesson in the “Eat” segment – Liz must have trouble multitasking because there’s one titular activity per country – is to relax and experience pleasure, mainly in the form of Italian food. She encourages her friend Sofi ( Tuva Novotny ) to stop worrying about maintaining a rigidly low weight and join her in indulgence.

We are treated to a montage – filled with forced jauntiness – of the two women trying to squeeze into a succession of growing pants sizes. Except it’s still Roberts: Even if she did (as reported) gain a whole 10 pounds for the film, her cheekbones could still slice ripe tomatoes. “Letting go” means sliding from the top 1 percent of the population on the slenderness scale to the top 2 percent. (By the way, cinematographer Bob Richardson makes the pasta look so luscious that low-carbers will have to cover their eyes more than the most squeamish viewer at a Saw film.)

Even after the scene switches to India, we’re not allowed to forget Liz’s newfound appetite: A running gag has fellow ashrammer “Richard from Texas ” (the always excellent Richard Jenkins ) always calling her “Groceries” because of the way she can wolf it down.

But, in the Gilbert blueprint, India is supposed to be prayerful, not prandial. So Liz learns to meditate. This involves emptying her mind, which – judging from the banalities in the voice-over – shouldn’t require much heavy lifting, if you catch my drift. (She also takes what must be the shortest vow of silence ever.) It is hard to imagine anything less cinematic than trancing out; to portray it accurately would provide too tempting an invitation to the audience. While I can imagine taking pleasure in gazing at Roberts’s navel, there are few things less rewarding than gazing at Roberts gazing at Roberts’s navel.

Moving from bellybutton to Bali, the film finally allows Liz a carnal/romantic consummation, in the form of Felipe ( Javier Bardem ), a soulful Brazilian expat. They have their ups and downs, but end up literally sailing off into the sunset. No, that’s unfair: The boat has a motor.

What with the title and pedigree, no one would expect “Eat Pray Love” to be filled with thrilling action. But the word “movie” does imply movement, and almost nothing ever happens throughout the protracted two hours and 20 minutes that director/co-writer Ryan Murphy takes to chronicle Liz’s travels. Nor are the “meaningful lessons” worth the wait. During the India scenes, Liz accuses Richard from Texas of spouting a bunch of bumper-sticker slogans ... as though her revelations are any better. Grade: C (Rated PG-13 on appeal for brief strong language, some sexual references, and male rear nudity.)

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Minnesota's Local Source for Film Music and Reviews

Review: Eat Pray Love (2010)

Eat pray love (2010).

Directed by: Ryan Murphy

Premise: An adaptation of the memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, in which the author takes a yearlong trip to Italy, India, and Indonesia in an attempt to piece her life back together after the breakup of her marriage.

What Works: Taken as escapist wish fulfillment directed at middle class women, Eat Pray Love delivers. The film has a great sense of humor and the narration by Julia Roberts as Gilbert has enough wit to keep it aloof even as it saturates the picture. Eat Pray Love also has some very strong supporting performances by Richard Jenkins as a Hindu practicing Texan, Hadi Subiyanto as a young Indian, and James Franco as an aspiring New York actor. These small roles give the film a lot of its life and reality.

What Doesn’t: Although Eat Pray Love works as an escapist daydream, the film claims to be more than that, which is primarily where it goes awry. Eat Pray Love is guilty of many things but chief among them is selling spiritual snake oil. Eat Pray Love both begins and ends with a woman in a fugue state, with little in between to challenge her or expand her consciousness. This is a film supposedly about healing and spiritual awakening but there just isn’t any of that in the story; Gilbert, as presented in this film, does not really suffer. Her initial heartbreak is poorly staged and unconvincingly conveyed and Eat Pray Love never digs a hole deep enough for Gilbert to have to crawl out of. And Gilbert’s solution to her existential crisis is questionable; the film does not confront the actual sources of her malcontent. Instead she spends her time eating in Italy without gaining much of an appreciation for bodily pleasures, praying in India but never achieving elevated consciousness, and loving in Indonesia without coming to any understanding of what love might mean. This is not a character growing into a new understanding of herself and the world; this is a woman drowning her mind in distraction. In fact, Eat Pray Love is not all that far departed from Sex and the City in its approach to human relationships and consumer culture. Aside from the thematic issues, there are noticeable weaknesses in the technical qualities of the film; the sound is often muffled and a lot of the lighting is ugly.

Bottom Line: Eat Pray Love is escapist entertainment, taking its viewers on a whirlwind tour of exotic locations. But the film is little more than a naively romantic travelogue and its pretensions get it into trouble.

Episode: #302 (August 22, 2010)

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Eat pray love, common sense media reviewers.

Find-your-bliss film appeals but raises questions, too.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The movie suggests that when you find yourself liv

Liz is lost in the beginning of the movie. She doe

Couples kiss tenderly. Lots of flirtation, some re

Words used include "s--t," "screw,&

Not many labels, but the book and the movie have e

Some social drinking at parties, bars, and restaur

Positive Messages

The movie suggests that when you find yourself living a life that turns out to not be what you wanted or dreamed of, it’s time to reboot, even if that means a complete overhaul. Yes, feelings will get hurt, and the pain may last for months or even years. But the risk is worth it, the movie says, to find happiness.

Positive Role Models

Liz is lost in the beginning of the movie. She doesn’t like the life she has, and she doesn’t know how to get the one she wants. She opts to take big risks to seek wisdom and joy, which is admirable. But there are casualties in her search for enlightenment.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Couples kiss tenderly. Lots of flirtation, some references to “sexy time,” and talk about a woman's need to end her self-prescribed celibacy. In one scene, a man strips down and asks the main character to go skinny dipping -- viewers see his bare backside a couple of times.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Words used include "s--t," "screw," "ass," “goddamn," "hell," "damn," "oh my God," and “bulls--," plus one “motherf---er.”

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Not many labels, but the book and the movie have encouraged many Eat Pray Love -inspired product tie-ins

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Some social drinking at parties, bars, and restaurants. A woman gets drunk at a a party and suffers a huge hangover the morning after. Some references in casual conversation to Xanax and meth.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this romantic drama based on the best-selling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert examines what happens when a woman walks away from the life (and husband) she knows to travel the world in search of meaning, balance, and joy. That's fairly heavy material for tweens, which is part of why this movie is more age-appropriate for teens and adults, who will be better able to appreciate the movie's life lessons. Expect some discussions about sex, celibacy, and relationships; a few glimpses of a naked male butt; and some swearing (including "s--t" and one "motherf---er") and drinking (including one scene in which a character gets quite drunk). To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (6)
Kids say (12)

Based on 6 parent reviews

Well-Made, Thought-Provoking, and Beautiful Film; Too Racy For Kids

What's the story.

Writer Elizabeth Gilbert ( Julia Roberts ) suddenly finds herself feeling trapped in a marriage she doesn't want, in a life she didn't envision. Despite the fact that she chose to fashion that very life, now she wants out -- and that realization will destroy her husband ( Billy Crudup ) and worry her friends. A love affair with a young actor ( James Franco ) isn't the answer, and neither is disappearing into her sorrows. So she decides to go to Italy, where she hopes to rediscover her passion for food, and, perhaps, life; to India, where she seeks spiritual connection; and to Bali, where she may finally forgive herself. It's there that she meets a Brazilian man ( Javier Bardem ) who just might convince her that love is worth the risk.

Is It Any Good?

All hail Julia Roberts: As Elizabeth Gilbert's avatar in this cinematic adaptation of the bestselling memoir Eat Pray Love , she's luminous and beautiful. Her faint wrinkles assure us that she hasn't been Botoxed or plastic-surgeried to death, and she's every bit the likable America's sweetheart she's known to be. With her in the starring role, a supporting cast filled with the likes of Bardem, Franco, Crudup, Viola Davis, and Richard Jenkins , and an inspired-by-real-life story set against some of the most photogenic locales in the world, how can it go wrong?

On one level, it doesn't. The film is convincingly stirring, and it hits all of the emotional notes that movies like these are supposed to hit. It's dreamy, it makes you think, and it even makes you cry. But poetic and unforgettable it's not. Some moments have been fashioned with heavy hands; you can feel the filmmakers pushing you to Feel Something. The film skates over why Liz can't abide the life she leads and the wreckage she leaves behind. And it incites the same debate that the book itself did: Is this chronicling a so-called self-indulgent journey that only the affluent can embark upon? Is it superficial? Or is it transformative? And does that matter when the film is, yes, entertaining?

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the movie's messages. Who do you think it's trying to reach? What is it saying to that audience?

Liz finds her bliss through a complete change in scenery, literally and figuratively. How realistic is this option for most people? What do you think would have happened if she hadn't been able to escape?

What eventually persuades Liz to leave her husband? Is her struggle relatable? Believable?

Movie Details

In theaters : August 13, 2010
On DVD or streaming : November 23, 2010
Cast : Billy Crudup , Javier Bardem , Julia Roberts
Director : Ryan Murphy
Inclusion Information : Gay directors, Female actors
Studio : Columbia Pictures
Genre : Drama
Run time : 133 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : brief strong language, some sexual references and male rear nudity
Last updated : December 20, 2023

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DVD & Streaming

Eat Pray Love

Drama , Romance

Content Caution

In Theaters

August 13, 2010
Julia Roberts as Liz Gilbert; Javier Bardem as Felipe; James Franco as David; Richard Jenkins as Richard; Viola Davis as Delia; Billy Crudup as Stephen; Hadi Subiyanto as Ketut Liyer

Home Release Date

November 23, 2010
Ryan Murphy

Distributor

Columbia Pictures

Movie Review

How would you feel if you could live the life you’ve always dreamed of? A great house. A devoted spouse. Adoring and well-behaved children. Interesting friends. Fun activities. A successful career.

You’d be deliriously joyful, right? Grateful? Maybe a little relieved?

In Liz Gilbert’s case, she already has many of these things but is crying-on-the-floor-every-night miserable. Nothing she has carefully constructed her life to be meets her expectations. And now she feels as if she’s trapped in her New York City dream house. Stuck with her committed husband. Floundering among all the color-inside-the-lines clichés she feels her life has become.

She used to marvel. Now she broods. She doesn’t even think she has a pulse anymore. Her once voracious appetite for life now nibbles on the endless everydayness of the world she once dreamed of.

Her solution? To bolt.

Based on the real-life Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling memoir, Eat Pray Love is one woman’s year-long attempt to find unparalleled food and spiritual self-actualization. First, she finds a lover, David. Then she divorces her husband, Stephen—even though he begs her to work on the relationship with him. Then she leaves David, too, and goes to stay with her friend Delia. Eventually Liz jets around the planet to Italy, India and Indonesia to experience life as she thinks it should be lived—with adventure, gourmet goodies, reckless abandon, personal enlightenment and freedom.

In Italy she crams carbs until her new spare tire must be maneuvered into her skinny jeans. At an ashram in India she meets a whiskered Texan named Richard and learns how to “forgive herself” and let go of regret. And in Bali a medicine man named Ketut, a healer woman named Wayan and a sensitive Brazilian lover named Felipe finally lead her to what she believes is peace.

Positive Elements

Stephen correctly calls Liz a quitter when she, for no reason beyond her own nebulous dissatisfaction and angst, wants out of their marriage. He says he loves her, takes his till-death vows very seriously and longs to work on their relationship.

Likewise, Delia is committed to her own marriage and encourages Liz to stay in hers. She tells Liz that she’s acting like a college kid by shirking responsibility and wanting to escape a perfectly wonderful life. Everyone faces doubts and difficulties, she tells Liz, but not everyone runs—they work things out .

Despite Liz’s desertion tactics (and sometimes because of them), the fundamental value of family is well portrayed in this film. Someone goes so far as to say family is the only permanent thing in life.

The movie also highlights the importance of friendships as Liz develops meaningful relationships. And though she’s cosmically confused, Liz does seek something spiritually bigger than she—and her attempts, though misguided, are heartfelt. She also organizes an international effort to raise funds to build Wayan and her young daughter a home. As a surprise for Ketut, Liz has some of his prized papers bound into a book.

Filipe is a loving father who isn’t afraid to express emotion in front of his children. When his 19-year-old son goes back to college after spring break, Filipe cries as the teen leaves—and the boy recognizes his father’s tenderness and affection with great appreciation.

Spiritual Elements

In a touching late-night scene Liz prays to God for what is, apparently, the first time. Her prayer is candid, desperate and utterly vulnerable as she begs Him for a sign and guidance. She then believes she hears God telling her to go back to bed.

During an American Thanksgiving meal in Italy, Liz and her friends thank God for His many blessings. Numerous other people talk about their prayers or are seen praying. Liz tells a joke about praying to a saint.

With Hinduism and Buddhism both seated in India, the country is one of the most spiritually minded places on earth. After visiting a European cathedral or two, Liz’s Asian subcontinent travels take her to an ashram headed by David’s guru, who also owns a retreat center in New York City. There in India, Liz chants and learns meditation before a shrine erected for the guru. Thereafter, she spends a great deal of time practicing her newfound mysticism, trying to fill the void she feels in her soul.

A young Indian girl says she would rather be with her god than a man. Later she is married in a traditional Hindu ceremony. Several Hindu gods are named or painted on walls, and many other spiritual icons are shown. Hindu scriptures are mentioned. Hindus wear prayer necklaces and adorn themselves with tilaks on their foreheads. (Liz too wears a tilak.)

Ketut reads people’s palms, tells their fortunes and gives spiritual advice. He gives Liz a drawing of a godlike creature. He claims that spiritual and emotional balance is the point where heaven and earth meet.

Richard tells Liz that if she could only open her mind the universe and God would rush into it, freeing her. He also tells her to “send some light and love to others.” Maybe these flimsy doctrines help to explain the outlandishness of Liz’s ultimate spiritual conclusion: God dwells in her as her. (If this doesn’t make sense in text, it’s because it doesn’t make much sense in the film either.)

Sexual Content

Couples kiss passionately and caress. Liz and Felipe live together and talk about spending much of their time having sex—an activity that happens off camera. Women wear low-cut and/or short, tight clothing, and Liz is seen in a negligee and bikini. We also see her underwear when she’s trying on jeans. Men go bare-chested and one man strips naked. (The camera shows his chest, back and buttocks close-up as he invites Liz to go skinny-dipping.) Liz is shown in a bathtub, her private parts obscured only by murky water.

It’s said that everyone must have a love affair in Bali. Wayan teases Liz about not having had sex in a long time—and then teases again when Liz and Felipe hook up and Liz develops a bladder infection from what Wayan says is too much sex. Richard mentions the fact that he cheated on his wife repeatedly. Several crude, sexually oriented jokes are made. Slang stands in for sexual body parts. There’s talk of lesbianism, affairs and cheating.

Violent Content

Felipe and Liz meet when he accidentally hits her with his vehicle, knocking her off her bicycle. She tumbles over a stone fence, hitting her head and badly cutting her leg. We see the wound close-up as a healer dresses it.

Wayan briefly tells Liz about her abusive husband’s violence.

Crude or Profane Language

One use of “m‑‑‑‑‑f‑‑‑er” and about 10 uses of the s-word. “Frickin'” stands in for the f-word several times. God’s name is abused a half-dozen times, once with “d‑‑n.” Christ’s name is misused at least twice. Other language includes two or three uses each of “h‑‑‑,” “d‑‑n” and “a‑‑.” We see two or three obscene gestures—including a little girl displaying her middle finger.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Liz and her friends in Italy drink wine with most meals—and sometimes drink too much. So it isn’t surprising when Liz holds up a carafe of vino and jokingly calls it “therapy.” Several other jokes are made about alcohol, including a man saying he’ll grab a beer and his infant. Liz and a potential date do shots at a party and get very drunk.

Richard is a recovering alcoholic and drug abuser. He tells Liz that he was so drunk and high one night he almost drove over his little son. Eventually he lost his job, friends, finances and family to his addictions. Liz jokes about always needing a Xanax.

Other Negative Elements

In an apparent attempt to assuage her guilt, Liz has an imaginary conversation with Stephen in which she “resolves” their conflict. This is enough to help her move on, but unfortunately, it does nothing for the real Stephen’s heartache and frustration.

A man crudely mentions his baby’s dirty diaper.

I’m pretty certain Ms. Gilbert doesn’t see any irony in the fact that all the countries she chose to visit begin with the letter I . But to me that letter seems fitting. Her neatly camouflaged self-absorption makes up much of Eat Pray Love . And I could never truly understand her reason for feeling utterly despondent—apart from the fact that she was usually looking for her own personal fulfillment and no one else’s.

Exploring one’s dreams and spirituality are good things when they’re pursued with less selfish motives. But Liz is rarely selfless, even though real-life Elizabeth and director Ryan Murphy would have us feel sorry for her. After all, despite her desperate unhappiness, she still has the gutsy gumption to overcome her despair and seek the life she’s always longed for— again . Regrettably, she does this even if it means ignoring wedding vows and hurting others along the way. In this film, it seems that pursuing your own happiness and “completion” is tantamount to godliness.

Perhaps what’s saddest about Eat Pray Love , however, is the fact that Liz genuinely asks all the right questions (What am I here to accomplish? Who is God? How do I know Him?) but quiets them with all the wrong, mostly self-seeking and muddled answers.

Like so many before her, Liz has turned her back on a godly religious conviction and morality, and sought a less challenging spiritual system instead. A system that requires only vaguely sending “light and love” to others rather than buckling down and fighting for a covenant relationship’s survival and growth when things are emotionally difficult. A system that encourages sweetly masked self-indulgence over real self-sacrifice, and salvation without real repentance. Instead of God and His majesty, Ms. Gilbert wants cheap grace to help her get through her needlessly miserable days.

Now, it’s reported, many other middle-aged women are reading her memoir and following in her footsteps—even to Italy, India and Indonesia—for their own angst-ridden, navel-gazing journeys away from “unsatisfying” lives that most people around the world only dream of having. This movie will only inspire more of them.

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Movie Review: Eat Pray Love

More dislikable than Johnny Borrell in a Chelsea FC shirt

Published in 2006, but on bestseller lists seemingly much longer than that, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love is the true story travelogue of the author’s journey into Italy, India and Indonesia as she attempts to understand who she is and what she wants in the wake of a broken marriage. It’s one of those books enjoyed predominantly by women who own toe rings, read Psychologies magazine and enjoy Ani De Franco records.

Or, as I like to call them, stupid, self-absorbed, we hate poor people, might-get-a-Henna-tattoo idiots.

I’m being a touch harsh. There’s subtle nuances to the book I haven’t explained that leave you in no doubt of the good Gilbert’s physical, spiritual and emotional journey does her. Sadly, like the punctuation removed from the movies title in the transition from book to screen – few of these make it into the film.

And the film is an absolute shocker.

Primarily, the problem with Eat Pray Love is in the set up. Unlike the book, director Ryan Murphy (creator of Nip/Tuck and Glee ) and co-writer Jennifer Salt ( Murder She Cunting Wrote ) spend little time fleshing out the character of Gilbert’s husband, played with all the depth and softness of a piece of sandpaper by Billy Crudup.

Unlike the book, Gilbert’s principal reason for leaving her man appears to be that he’s decided to leave his job and go back to college. But she appears callous for walking out the door in order to better her life when she’s leaving someone she previously loved who also wants to do just that (just with books and stuff instead of Air Miles).

But it gets worse. Gilbert is no Shirley Valentine , her husband doesn’t treat her badly, she’s well educated, she has a plush house – all soft furnishings and those stupid fucking plants that people who own art galleries in Brighton have – she has friends – I’m still looking for the straw that broke the camel having a midlife crisis here – and the film never once explains how she can afford to pack up her life and dick around the globe (or rather, it neglects to mention that Gilbert was actually a commercially successful writer who had one of her pieces turned into Coyote Ugly in 2000).

I don’t want to sound like fucking Bono, but in a world where some people can’t afford to eat, and where many don’t have a home – let alone can’t afford Prada – the movie take on Gilbert couldn’t be more thoroughly dislikable if she made a brief detour en route to Indonesia and did a shit in the mouth of an African child.

So it’s a good job she’s played by Julia Roberts, eh? I mean, nobody dislikes Julia Roberts. She’s got such wonderful teeth! She looks like she could bite through the Golden Gate Bridge and still look ravishing at dinner! She’s so pretty! Well, you could have cast my mum in the lead role and I still would have despised her every eyelash flutter. I could make a Top 20 list of scenes in the film that made me despise the existence of the human race, but instead I’m going to Google some pictures of bunny rabbits to stop myself from committing a murder. Still, the bit in the segment in Italy where she comes to “value the taste of real spaghetti” is beyond loathable.

In many ways I don’t even consider Eat Pray Love a film. I see it as more akin to a very well made travel brochure (begrudgingly I’d admit the cinematography is outstanding) adapted for the screen. But what I do consider it to be is ethically void, morally corrupt, with shit for brains and no understanding of the world outside of its own head. It’s like going on an episode of Come Dine With Me with the cast of Loose Women EVERY NIGHT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, or being trapped inside the verse of a Tori Amos song.

Eat Pray Love is going to be number one at the box office for months. It’s going to be a massive deal. And each and every one of you who enjoys it is going to Hell.

James McMahon

Eat Pray Love (United States, 2010)

Eat Pray Love is a muddle of a film - 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. In either case, the movie's quasi-preachy attitude effectively counterbalances whatever charm Julia Roberts brings to the proceedings. Eat Pray Love 's trite, platitude-laden "philosophy" embraces concepts perfect for our post-modern society: God lies within, self-forgiveness is the road to enlightenment, and it doesn't matter how many people you hurt as long as you're happy in the end. The movie is banal; the underlying doctrine is dubious. Now I can understand why the source material has received as much scorn as it has inspired devotion.

Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) is going through a mid-life crisis. She is bored with her upper middle class Manhattan lifestyle and wants to do something else but, like an indecisive college student, she doesn't know what. So she dumps her devoted husband, Stephen (Billy Crudup), and takes up with a young, hunky actor (James Franco). If you don't dislike the lead character by this point, give it time - that will come. Eventually, she tires of the actor and heads overseas to find herself. Her first stop is Rome, where she spends four months indulging one of the deadly sins: gluttony. Then it's off to India, to live in an ashram and learn how to meditate. There she meets Richard from Texas (Richard Jenkins), whose revelations about his own sad life show Liz the path to enlightenment. Finally, she travels to Bali, where she hangs around a fortuneteller and falls for a sexy Brazilian, Felipe (Javier Bardem), who, like Liz, isn't looking for love when it finds him.

It's hard to decide which is Eat Pray Love 's least appealing and most appalling quality: its needless 135-minute running time, its mealy philosophizing, or the deplorable nature of the lead character. In general terms, there's no rule that a protagonist has to be likeable but, in Liz's case, it's obvious we are intended not merely to like her, but to identify with her. The casting of Julia Roberts is intended to stack the deck. One doesn't hire this particular actress to play a shallow, self-absorbed woman unless the intention is for us to accompany her on an amazing, transformative journey. Although that may be the intention, it isn't what happens, perhaps because such a spiritual apotheosis is difficult for even the most accomplished director to convey (a category in which Ryan Murphy, who's currently embroiled in the TV series Glee , does not fit). What we end up with is an individual who's not fundamentally different at the end than at the beginning, and whom we're supposed to forgive because a few throw-away cut scenes show that the people she discarded are living happy lives without her.

In many ways, the central philosophy of Eat Pray Love (the movie), which may or may not be governed by the guiding principles spelled out in Elizabeth Gilbert's book, fits well with today's "me-first" attitude. The story focuses on self-gratification, self-fulfillment, and self-discovery. It's all about "self," even though there are times when a little self-abnegation is needed to get to the finish line. I'd be less irritated by the movie's philosophical foundation if it avoided sermonizing. Are the filmmakers seeking viewers or converts?

Roberts does her best to make Liz appealing, but it's a losing battle. She smooths some of the rough edges, which serves to make the protagonist bland and unmemorable rather than detestable. There are some interesting secondary characters, most of whom are on screen for far too little time. The best of these is Richard from Texas, who is played with dignity by character actor Richard Jenkins. The scene in which Richard conveys his sad history represents the best five minutes in the movie, and nothing else comes close. Javier Bardem is stuck in the thankless role of the love interest, and he doesn't appear until the movie has overstayed its welcome. Watching him, I couldn't help wishing he'd pull out the oxygen tank and use it on Liz.

When it comes to employing exotic locales as a backdrop for a character-based story, Murphy could learn a thing or two from Rubba Nada, whose Cairo Time successfully interweaves travelogue elements into a narrative-based feature. The best Eat Pray Love does is to incorporate some throw-way establishing shots. In Cairo Time , I felt like I was in Egypt. In Eat Pray Love , I felt like I was thumbing through the photo album of someone who spent some time in Italy (eat), India (pray), and Indonesia (love).

Perhaps the most damning indictment I can offer regarding Eat Pray Love is that it's interminable. As the running time stretches toward what seems to be infinity, the average viewer is likely to glance and his or her watch with increasing frequency. Occasional taps on the face are understandable because the minute hand may seem to either be moving too slowly or to have stopped altogether. Perhaps members of the film's target demographic, of which I am not a member, will immerse themselves with wistful pleasure in what Eat Pray Love offers. If so, good for them. For me, the problem isn't the estrogen overdose, it's the attempted indoctrination into a philosophy I find repugnant.

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Eat, Pray, Love (2010)

Eat Pray Love is a testament to the merits of genius casting. After all, only an actress as effortlessly graceful, effervescent, and disarming as Julia Roberts could make a chick-lit tome turned self-help chick-flick feel like the best vacation I’ve never taken.

Before this review turns into a never-ending ode to Julia Roberts, I should tell you that Eat Pray Love is a film adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s wildly popular best-selling memoir of the same name. Liz (that’s what everyone calls her), a New York City based writer, realizes that things aren’t right in her eight-year marriage to affable but unfocused Stephen (Billy Crudup). No sooner does she file for divorce than she meets David, a good-looking young actor (James Franco), with whom she has a volatile rebound romance. That relationship proves to be a bad fit, too, and Liz finds herself in an existential crisis.

Promotional film poster for the movie 'Eat, Pray, Love'

But friendly Liz is rarely alone no matter where she goes. In her world travels, she meets a whole new cadre of friends who bring with them life lessons. In Rome, Luca Spaghetti (Guiseppe Gandini) teaches her to appreciate pleasure over entertainment, to communicate with her hands Italian-style, and to make love to big heaping bowls of rigatoni, linguine, and, yes, spaghetti. In an Indian ashram, she meets Richard from Texas (Richard Jenkins), who helps her to understand true loss and letting go. And in Bali, she learns to smile from her liver from a shaman named Ketut (Hadi Subyanto) and to love again from a gorgeous, heavy-tongued Brazilian divorcee named Felipe (Javier Bardem).

Adapted for the screen by Jennifer Salt and Ryan Murphy (who also directs), Eat Pray Love gets it mostly right. Murphy infuses healthy doses of Gilbert’s original text (through both dialogue and voiceover narration) with breathtaking panoramas of the story’s three locations. But the colorful flowers and jewel-toned saris at an Indian wedding and the endless blue of Indonesian waterways pale in comparison to the deliciousness of Italy. Murphy’s camera zooms in on plates of asparagus dripping in olive oil, cantaloupe draped in prosciutto, and pasta drenched in marinara. They say you shouldn’t grocery shop on an empty stomach. The same is true of the first half of this film.

It must be said, however, that it’s not the noodles, the saris, or the waters you’ll continuously fall in love with in this film. It’s how Ms. Roberts joyously twirls her fork (once, sitting in her dilapidated Roman apartment alone in a silky negligee), wraps herself in emerald-colored silk, and frolics in the deep. Her whooping-crane laugh and mile-wide grin are every bit as infectious now as they were when we first fell in love with her 20 years ago. She’s come a long way, but she is still a pretty woman.

To Roberts’s credit, she delivers a subtle, nuanced performance that doesn’t rely solely on her personal charms. A beautiful woman of means, Liz and her problems could seem like irritating non-issues if it weren’t for the actress’s ability to downplay the histrionics. In fact, her simultaneous strength and vulnerability reminded me of Katharine Hepburn’s role in 1955’s Summertime (about an American spinster vacationing in Venice). And I don’t make comparisons to Kate the Great lightly.

There are also some terrific performances turned in by the supporting players, most notably Richard Jenkins as a cantankerous dispenser of bumper-sticker wisdom who calls Liz “Groceries” because of her prodigious appetite. Many of his scenes may have been intended as comic relief, but the actor imbues them all with a layer of damaged gruffness. Hadi Subyanto’s toothless playfulness is a welcome scene-stealer, Viola Davis is a delight as Liz’s wry, no-nonsense editor, and Javier Bardem is suitably swarthy and Latin. I wish there had been more for him to do. He is only given one real “moment”, when his professions of love are rebuffed by Liz, but he absolutely shines in it.

My only substantial complaint about Eat Pray Love is its 133-minute running time. It is possible to get too much of a good thing. Fortunately, Julia Roberts is not one of those things.

Eat Pray Love Movie

Release Date: August 13th, 2010
Category: Romance
Length: 133 min
Rated: PG-13
Roxanne’s rating: 4.0
Julia Roberts
Javier Bardem
Billy Crudup
Richard Jenkins

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Movie Review: “Eat Pray Love”

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World-travel, on its own, has always had an amazing appeal – learning about different routes of life, history, art, culture, architecture, people, food, and experiencing the kindness of strangers along the way. Born and raised in Indonesia, I was one of those kids who dreamed to travel around the world and believed that there’s something more out there for me.

While the story has all the ingredients of a best-selling book, the film is overwhelmingly underwhelming, not to mention running long past its time for this type of tale. Broken down into three segments (or four, if you count the prologue in New York) – Italy, India, Bali – it sweeps the details of Gilbert’s (Julia Roberts’) life events under the glossy cover.

Roberts (bless her heart), with her warmth and down-to-earth vibe, does the best she can and hopes that we will root for her. The backstory with the husband (Billy Crudup) doesn’t depict the struggles and fights, those irreconcilable differences in a marriage that would lead to her exit. Instead, it’s as if Gilbert wakes up one day and decides she’s fallen out of love. The only moment where I could feel the emptiness she feels about her life is during her desperate prayer. This is a moment where she asks for guidance from above to tell her what to do.

Hopping into an affair right after the split with her husband, Gilbert jumps into a relationship with a young Broadway actor that looks like James Franco. All her life she’s always in some sort of relationship, so this is not surprising.

The film fails to mention that Gilbert received payment in advance for her globe trotting from her publisher, and it does beg the question whether she would have gone without it. It makes the reality less ‘authentic’ than if she would “go for broke” and embark on the quest “just because.”

A soul-searching journey, the longing to discover more about oneself and something greater resonates well, especially these days where it’s easy to become disillusioned.

Italy embodies the “eat” portion of the book and is a feast for foodies. Aside from the historic ruins and language, the parade of good food and fine wine showcases Italy as a culinary marvel. The hilarious hand-gestures and wee-hours of the morning of Thanksgiving dinner highlight this sojourn. It is true that there’s a difference between pleasure and merely entertainment.

India, “pray,” is in stark contrast to Italy. From the slum to the ashram, it’s certainly a contrast to Italy. India is where the human connections seem most genuine. There’s a moment in time where Gilbert connects with an Indian girl being thrown into an arranged marriage. There are meaningful walks and talks with Richard (Richard Jenkins), an American from Texas who shares his painful past and relationship with his family.

Here Gilbert learns that just because she is at the center of a sacred place, it doesn’t necessarily mean that she would feel more present. All the meditation and devotion won’t do anything as long as she’s in the pity-party mode. Harmony and happiness are not to be pursued; they’re already inside if only she could clear her mind and heart, trust and let things happen.

The beauty of Bali, “love,” is shown through the rain-forests, terraced rice paddies and tropical flowers. Gilbert re-connects with Ketut Liyer, a Balinese palm-reader and healer who she met previously. She gets to know Wayan, a divorced woman with her daughter. Wayan treats Gilbert’s leg injury after her bike was nearly run over by a jeep-driving Brazilian, Felipe (Javier Bardem). Felipe is her soon-to-be lover and husband, which all seems a little out of nowhere and a bit rushed.

In the end, “Eat Pray Love” is passable but not palatable enough. When the interactions among the characters are not believable, it’s hard to care. Instead of genuine emotional healing and spiritual awakening, Gilbert is simply swimming along from on set of events to another. “Eat Pray Love” is more of a romanticized travelogue, rather than a truly transformative one.

Nathalia Aryani is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic (rottentomatoes.com/critic/nathalia-aryani). She has a movie blog, The MovieMaven (sdmoviemaven.blogspot.com). Twitter: @the_moviemaven. She can be reached at [email protected] .

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‘The Feeling’ Review: Fifty Shades of Apathy

In the sex comedy “The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed,” Joanna Arnow keeps her scenes short and her expressions flat.

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A woman walks down the street in a reddish orange dress; she’s talking on a cellphone.

By Amy Nicholson

Joanna Arnow’s attention-grabbing debut “The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed” has been described as a sadomasochistic sex comedy, but it’s hard to laugh.

Arnow, who wrote, directed and stars in this sometimes-riveting, sometimes-dull study of demoralization, plays a dour 30-something New Yorker who spends her days getting pushed around by her boss (Armand Reiser). At night, she submits to the sexual commands of her various male masters, whom she meets online. The joke is that her days and nights aren’t that different.

And then the joke is on the audience when Arnow introduces us to six men in 30 minutes before we realize that we don’t yet know her character’s name. (It’s Ann.)

The film is structured by Ann’s partners, whose names appear in tidy white font on a black screen. They’re nearly always dressed; she’s almost always naked (though one partner, played by Parish Bradley, commands her to wear bunny ears and a pig nose). It’d be one thing if Ann enjoyed the sex. But from the snapshots we see, these encounters seem mostly humiliating and joyless. When obeying an order to touch herself in view of drivers on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, she just looks bored.

Arnow keeps her scenes short and her expressions flat. These glimpses of her character’s life could be stand-alone comic book panels. Together, they’re a mosaic of stagnation.

Arnow films her own nude body with the kind of frankness that is called brave because she wants to be more confrontational than arousing. She’s so visible that it takes a beat to remember that someone can be physically exposed and emotionally opaque.

Caught in our own disregard for Ann’s individuality, the audience has more in common with her masters, particularly Allen (Scott Cohen), an older divorced man whom Ann started seeing when she was 24. As a younger naïf, Ann might have hoped he might grow to like her. By now, callous Allen has simply taken root in her psyche and makes her feel, as she says in the first scene, “like I don’t even exist.”

What does a decade of disregard do to a person? Calling Allen the film’s villain gives the louse too much credit. He’s just a pattern, not the patternmaker. Allen can’t remember how many years Ann has been his bed partner; her company can’t remember how many years she’s been employed. (Her boss’s funniest bits come when he fatuously lectures about the importance of Facebook to a boardroom of millennials who gaze at him neutrally, powerless to interrupt.) When Arnow, who also edited the film, splices a scene of a lover scrawling a crude nickname on Ann’s belly next to a scene of the HR department coldly changing Ann’s job title, she’s made her basic point: neither cares about her needs.

Yet Arnow’s sophisticated point — the one referenced in the film’s unwieldy title — is what drives interest until our own spirits snap. Why won’t Ann allow herself to want more? Because she’s too stuck to embark upon a journey of empowerment and self-actualization. This isn’t “Eat, Pray, Love” — it’s strip, bend, repeat. And when she meets Chris (Babak Tafti), a genuinely nice man, his kindness seems to make her itchy.

Arnow’s visual style isn’t pretty, but it pairs well with the mood. She allows herself two flourishes: Once, she color-matches a guy’s beard to his beer; later, a blurry Ann exits a subway train and walks toward the lens until she comes into focus — a lovely metaphor for a woman struggling to see her own needs. Otherwise, Arnow and the cinematographer Barton Cortright lean into punishment, like the close-up of Ann squeezing out a chunky packet of microwave curry.

At the sound mix’s most unpleasant, we hear every swallow of Ann, of her distracted father (David Arnow) and of her exasperating mother (Barbara Weiserbs) at the dinner table. (Both are played by Arnow’s actual parents.)

Ultimately, the film reveals that everyone around Ann seems to be having more fun. Strangers’ muffled music and chatter are frequently heard through her walls. Ann knows happiness is out there. But to take off the pig nose and admit she wants it? That’s just too vulnerable.

The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed Not Rated. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters.

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Challengers review – Zendaya holds court in absurdly sexy three-way tennis romance

Luca Guadagnino’s sizzling, sharply scripted drama, co-starring Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, is such fun it’s almost indecent

N obody harnesses horniness quite like Luca Guadagnino . With his lavish, luxurious portrait of forbidden lust, the Tilda Swinton -starring I Am Love , Guadagnino embraced one of cinema’s most cliched symbolic sensual devices, filling the frame with come-hither shots of delectable food. But somehow, in his hands, this hackneyed metaphor feels fresh, and the film is a skin-tingling exploration of erotic tension. Then there’s Call Me By Your Name , with its scenes of peach-grappling and languid yearning, in which even the spaces between the characters are charged with longing. And Bones and All , which virtually rebrands cannibalism as a legitimate kink. But even by Guadagnino’s highly charged standards, Challengers is an absurdly sexy movie. With its power plays and exquisite cruelty, the shimmering beauty of its three leads and their tantalising interlocking desires, and the slow-motion shots of pooling sweat dripping on to the lens, the film borders on trashy at times, but it’s so much fun that it’s practically indecent.

At the very centre of the story, and providing much of the muscular energy that drives it, is a never better Zendaya . Deploying every last drop of her silky star quality, she plays Tashi, a former tennis prodigy. When we meet her, Tashi is now coaching her husband, Art (Mike Faist, channelling a thorny combination of brash entitlement and neediness), a multi-grand-slam-winning tennis champion who has hit a confidence-sapping losing streak. And it’s more than his career that hangs in the balance. The stress is compounded because Art is well aware that for his wife, losers are a massive turn-off. “I love you,” he says plaintively. “I know,” she purrs, lazily uninterested. Advantage Tashi.

Steely, businesslike and definitely the one who wears the tennis shorts in this relationship, she decides to pull her floundering husband out of a high-profile forthcoming competition and to enter him instead into a low-stakes regional Challenger tournament, the 2019 Phil’s Tire Town Challenger in New Rochelle, New York. The idea is that the podunk circuit, frequented mainly by unseeded players at the very beginning or end of their careers, is unlikely to throw up an opponent who will further dent Art’s beleaguered game.

What the couple hadn’t anticipated was that they would encounter Patrick Zweig (a devilishly charming Josh O’Connor ), a washed-up former hotshot coasting on charisma and the pocket change he can still scrape from occasional wins. This wouldn’t be a concern, but for the fact that Patrick is Tashi’s ex-boyfriend and formerly Art’s closest friend. And as such, Patrick is uniquely well placed to get inside his opponent’s head and blunt his competitive edge.

Zendaya and the ‘devilishly charming’ Josh O’Connor.

Just how well placed becomes clear as the film, guided by an agile screenplay by writer Justin Kuritzkes (husband of Celine Song , whose directorial debut, Past Lives , also, coincidentally, features a love triangle), deftly volleys back and forth between timelines. Rewinding 13 years to 2006, we meet all three as promising junior players. Art and Patrick have been friends since childhood, on top of the world having just carried off a doubles trophy. But Tashi is in a different league. The boys watch her play for the first time, an apex predator in a kicky little tennis skirt. And they struggle to tear their eyes away from her to follow the ball. Later, when they meet her for the first time at a party held in her honour, she tells them: “Tennis is a relationship.” A piano motif – uneasy, excitable, off-balance – leaves us with no doubt about what kind of relationship she means. A smouldering hotel room scene, reminiscent of a pivotal moment in Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mam á Tambi én , further seals the deal.

Music is a potent force throughout. When the blood is up, on the tennis court or elsewhere, prowling, pulse-racing techno thunders on the score (by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), an instantly thrilling jolt of adrenaline. It’s an assertive, almost aggressive musical decision, but then perhaps the film-making choices need to be big and bold, if only to match the oversized egos of the ultra-competitive and manipulative central characters. The camera, caught in the crossfire as the tension between the three builds, is so involved in the climactic match between Art and Patrick that it shoots from the perspective of the ball at one point. The dividing line between sporting clash and romantic rivalry is blurred to the extent that it no longer exists. The sex is like tennis: fierce, combative bouts in which there will always be a winner and a loser. And the tennis, ultimately, is like sex: an ecstatic consummation between two perfectly matched people at their glistening physical peak.

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Watch a tense romantic triangle play out on the tennis court in 'Challengers'

Justin Chang

Art (Mike Faist), Tashi (Zendaya) and Patrick (Josh O'Connor) are embroiled in a love triangle in Challengers . Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures hide caption

Art (Mike Faist), Tashi (Zendaya) and Patrick (Josh O'Connor) are embroiled in a love triangle in Challengers .

As much as I liked his Suspiria remake and his cannibal thriller Bones and All , it's nice to see the Italian director Luca Guadagnino make a movie that doesn't end with buckets of blood. His new sports movie, Challengers , instead comes drenched in buckets of sweat, and it's the most purely entertaining thing he's made in years. It gives us a romantic triangle set in the world of tennis, and it stars three superb actors in roles that are as athletically demanding as they are emotionally rich.

It begins on a tennis court in New Rochelle, a town just north of New York City, the site of a prestigious second-tier competition known as a Challenger tournament. On one side of the net is Art Donaldson, played by Mike Faist. Art has won three of the four Grand Slam events but has now hit a bit of a slump. He's squaring off against his former best friend, Patrick Zweig, played by Josh O'Connor. Patrick hasn't had as illustrious a career as Art, but he may well be the more gifted player.

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They're in love and they eat people, in 'bones and all'.

Watching them anxiously from the stands is Art's wife and coach, Tashi Duncan, played by Zendaya. It's clear that these three characters have some complicated history, which Guadagnino and the screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes proceed to unravel through a dizzying array of flashbacks.

And so we jump back 13 years to when Art and Patrick are buddies and doubles partners. Around this time they meet Tashi, a terrific tennis player who's about to begin her first year at Stanford. The boys begin a friendly competition for Tashi's affections, which the more confident Patrick initially wins. But after various ups and downs, including a twist that derails Tashi's tennis career, she winds up marrying Art and becoming his coach. Now, years later, this fateful Challenger tournament has brought the estranged Art and Patrick face-to-face once more. It's here that Patrick privately confronts Tashi and makes a startling proposition, asking her to be his coach.

In Teen Drama 'We Are Who We Are,' We're Still Figuring Out Who We Are

Even when all the toggling between past and present gets a little repetitive, Challengers throws off an unstoppable energy. In the tennis scenes, the camera seems to be everywhere at once, and a hypnotic techno score, by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross , pulses and surges beneath the action. And like Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name , Challengers has a forthright sensuality that reminds you how sexually timid most mainstream American movies are by comparison.

There isn't all that much sex in the film, but there's so much erotic tension and atmosphere that it doesn't matter. Guadagnino is a master of the tease — and so, it turns out, is Tashi. In one early, flirty scene with the three of them, Tashi not only maintains the upper hand, but also reveals that these two dudes might be more attracted to each other than they let on. As the years pass, though, their youthful desire for Tashi gives way to a deeper need.

As Art, Faist shows as much live-wire physicality here as he did in the West Side Story remake, though his performance becomes more melancholy over time as Art faces his limitations. O'Connor, by contrast, is all swagger as Patrick, forever leading with his devilishly charming smile. And then there's Zendaya, who's so brilliant in her early tennis scenes that I wish Tashi hadn't been sidelined and forced into playing the role of mentor and muse to two men. But as in the recent Dune: Part Two , Zendaya keeps you watching with her mix of fierce intelligence and emotional uncertainty — over who will win the match, and what it might mean for her future.

Will Tashi stick with Art, the safe, skillful player who may not have the gumption to be one of the all-time greats? Or will she return to Patrick, the superior but more volatile talent? The movie resolves this quandary in a grand finale that's at once thrilling and maddening in the way it pushes this triangle and this tennis match to the breaking point. But by then, you can't blame Guadagnino for loving his characters so passionately, or feeling so reluctant to let them go. If it were up to him, the game would never end.

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