I broke my rule when it comes to Eat Pray Love, the new Julia Roberts movie based on the memoirs of Elizabeth Gilbert. Usually when I see a movie based on the book, I would have read it before seeing the movie.

I didn’t with this one. The reason why is that I didn’t intend to see this movie. It wasn’t really on my radar of summer movies to see but the TV spots featuring The Temper Trap’s Sweet Disposition and shots 0f Julia Roberts eating attracted me to see this film and it really was only this week that I decided to see this film so therefore I had no time to read this book. Would I want to after seeing the film. Not really. At 133 minutes, I felt that I already got the gist of the novel.

The basic premise of Eat Pray Love is that Robert’s Liz Gilbert is a woman who realizes she is not getting what she wants out of life, and, after a painful divorce, sets out on a journey that takes her to Italy, India and Indonesia to find herself.

For someone who wants to find herself, I found that Liz seems to fall into patterns quite quickly. After separating from her husband Stephen (Billy Crudup) she falls right into the arms of a young actor (James Franco) to only find herself in the same position and mind-set that led her to seek a divorce.

Of course, the movie really starts to come alive when Liz starts her year long journey across the world. The place that I enjoyed the most was when she went to Rome. Director Ryan Murphy (the creator of Glee) gives a loving lens to the food of Italy especially the delicious spaghetti and pizza that Liz enjoys (and probably Roberts too). It does make me want to go to that pizzeria in Naples now to try it. I did enjoy the speech that Liz gives to her new friend Sophie (Tuva Novotny) about women shouldn’t watch what they eat and just eat the pizza without the guilt.

I did enjoy the scenes of camaraderie that she forms with the people she meets in Italy from Sophie to her Italian tutor to even a guy in the barber shop that become sort of her family.

The movie takes a bad detour in India. Richard Jenkins may be an Oscar-nominated actor but I found his character of Richard from Texas quite annoying and a know it all that I really wouldn’t been as patient with him as Liz his. What I find most unforgivable is that he calls Liz by the annoying nickname of “Groceries.”

She’s in India to be able to find peace and meditation. However, I truly don’t believe that Liz ever gets to the place where she can completely let herself go to meditation. I wish there were a few more scenes that did depict her actually being able to shut her mind and be able to do it.

When she finally makes it to Bali, I wasn’t quite sure if I should still care and hope that she does find herself. By the time she meets Javier Bardem’s Felipe, I was hoping that this means the end of the movie was near. I didn’t really find that Roberts and Bardem had any chemistry when Felipe is supposed to be the love of Liz’s life.

While Murphy does paint the movie with stunning visual vistas of Italy, India and Indonesia, I found that the story didn’t hold my attention. My mind drifted a lot to whether or not I closed the fridge door, left the eggs out and what I should eat after the movie. There wasn’t enough action going on screen to really hold my attention for the full 133 minutes.

Maybe if I read the book, I might find out exactly what Elizabeth Gilbert was looking to find when she went on this journey. If it was to find out that she’s only happy when she is in a relationship with a man then I will have to burn that book because I think that was the message that the movie was trying to convey that, as the Beatles once said, All You Need Is Love to which I say Phooey!