Ryan Murphy
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Connections, in both directions
But there was no way she was letting go of the lead role in “Wild,” based on Strayed’s 2012 best-selling memoir that recalls other self-induced trials of endurance such as “ Eat Pray Love ,” “ 127 Hours ” and “Into the Wild.”
This isn’t the one-with-self drama-queen travelogue of Eat Pray Love or the pompous one-with-nature spiritual quest of Into the Wild.
I feel roughly the same about Cheryl Strayed as I do about “Eat Pray Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert (a former magazine colleague of mine), which has to begin with the observation that I will never understand, on a personal or intimate level, what it’s like to be a woman who feels imprisoned in her own life in a female-specific trap.
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club) and based on the real-life Cheryl Strayed’s memoir “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail”, Wild is the sort of awards season film that, at first glance, might come off as little more than another story about a privileged individual who goes searching for relief from their “problems”; a grittier version of Eat Pray Love, so to speak.
It often feels like a welcome reaction to the phony gloss of “Eat Pray Love,” in which Julia Roberts traveled to exotic locales, in search of a handsome male distraction and shallow new-age platitudes.
Reminiscent of many other journey-through-the-wilderness-as-metaphor-for-life movies, Wild is part Into the Wild , part Eat Pray Love , a deliberately and delicately-crafted movie star vehicle for a lead actress who has made some less-than-admirable choices in recent years with bad rom-coms and forgettable dramas.
But if you hanker after distaff questers who are truly hot for God or wisdom or something that passes for transformative experience, buy a ticket to travel instead with Adela Quested ( Judy Davis ) in " A Passage to India " ... or Kate Winslet 's "goddess" in " Holy Smoke " ... or Nicole Kidman 's dreamer in " The Portrait of a Lady " ... or Patricia Arquette 's Red Cross Knight in the mythic " Beyond Rangoon ."
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
influenced Eat Pray Love (2010)
Plot
So I would be a fool to expect Roberts to walk off on her own like Ellen Burstyn did in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” or Jill Clayburgh did in “An Unmarried Woman.”
But if you hanker after distaff questers who are truly hot for God or wisdom or something that passes for transformative experience, buy a ticket to travel instead with Adela Quested ( Judy Davis ) in " A Passage to India " ... or Kate Winslet 's "goddess" in " Holy Smoke " ... or Nicole Kidman 's dreamer in " The Portrait of a Lady " ... or Patricia Arquette 's Red Cross Knight in the mythic " Beyond Rangoon ."
So I would be a fool to expect Roberts to walk off on her own like Ellen Burstyn did in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” or Jill Clayburgh did in “An Unmarried Woman.”
If On the Waterfront was Kazan's apologia for singing like a canary, then Julia's late career seems an apologia for buying someone else's husband and getting away with it, for the most part, in the court of public opinion.
But if you hanker after distaff questers who are truly hot for God or wisdom or something that passes for transformative experience, buy a ticket to travel instead with Adela Quested ( Judy Davis ) in " A Passage to India " ... or Kate Winslet 's "goddess" in " Holy Smoke " ... or Nicole Kidman 's dreamer in " The Portrait of a Lady " ... or Patricia Arquette 's Red Cross Knight in the mythic " Beyond Rangoon ."
But if you hanker after distaff questers who are truly hot for God or wisdom or something that passes for transformative experience, buy a ticket to travel instead with Adela Quested ( Judy Davis ) in " A Passage to India " ... or Kate Winslet 's "goddess" in " Holy Smoke " ... or Nicole Kidman 's dreamer in " The Portrait of a Lady " ... or Patricia Arquette 's Red Cross Knight in the mythic " Beyond Rangoon ."
Stealing every scene he's in, Jenkins -- who two years ago won an Oscar nomination for his lead role in "The Visitor" -- immediately should land on everybody's short list for a supporting-actor nomination this year.
India makes for more quick connections, although the most notable, 'Richard from Texas' (Richard Jenkins, "The Visitor," "Dear John"), takes more of Liz's getting used to.
And the incidental men in the movie -- Javier Bardem ( No Country for Old Men ), Billy Crudup ( Watchmen ) Richard Jenkins ( The Visitor ), James Franco ( The Great Raid ), and Hadi Subiyanto -- liven things up a bit, so its not a total disaster.
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Directed by Wes Anderson
influenced Running with Scissors (2006)
Characters Themes Visuals
For the most part, Murphy is pitching somewhere between American Beauty and The Royal Tenenbaums; indeed, the characters Bening and Gwyneth Paltrow play in Scissors are, in a sense, inversions of their roles in Beauty and Tenenbaums, respectively.
They can offer serious drama by investing the time and energy to develop complex characters or they can opt to traverse a more comedic path, incorporating wit and humor (consider The Royal Tenenbaums).
Insanely funny and strangely moving, the oddball family in this darkly cynical comedy makes "The Royal Tenenbaums" seem normal.
The standard comparison of Running with Scissors to the films of Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums) is at once apt and completely beside the point.
When done moderately well or aimed at niche audiences (Home for the Holidays, The Family Stone, The Royal Tenenbaums), they score middling success.
Watching poor Freud reconstituted as dinner put me in mind of two things: Stephen King's Pet Sematary and Paltrow's far more emotionally urgent turn in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums â Running With Scissors' far more appealing comedic twin.
Cinematographer Robert Richardson's (Oscar winner for "The Aviator" and "JFK") shots of pasta and pizza, and the Italian cafes and countryside kitchens where Liz partakes, will leave you desperate for a taste; the light filtering through the ashram bathes those scenes with an ethereal glow; the lush tropics of Bali through his lens turns up the heat, though honestly with Bardem around, you don't need it.
But she's helped immensely by the scenery, which is photographed so beautifully by cinematographer Robert Richardson ("The Aviator, " "Inglourious Basterds") that if it doesn't make you want to head to old Napoli -- or at least to Andrea's -- I'm not sure what will.
EAT, PRAY, LOVE Lusciously shot by Oscar winner Robert Richardson (The Aviator , JFK ), Eat Pray Love delivers a sensory overload as intense as Inception's but heavily calibrated to stir the hearts, loins and tear ducts of women for whom love handles and spiritual bankruptcy are of equally pressing concern.
This movie about a just-divorced woman has already been made once before by another feminist, Audrey Wells, called Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), and it was almost as bad as this thing, if possible.
The work that will more obviously come to mind, however, is "Under the Tuscan Sun," the 2003 film (based on the 1996 memoir of the same name) where Diane Lane also played a writer who also got divorced and also moved to Italy to rediscover and reconnect with herself.
Diane Lane gave a much more convincingly moving, well-nuanced performance in Under the Tuscan Sun, a superior film which treads similar waters, but with a smarter script, less schmaltz and more comic relief.
And the incidental men in the movie -- Javier Bardem ( No Country for Old Men ), Billy Crudup ( Watchmen ) Richard Jenkins ( The Visitor ), James Franco ( The Great Raid ), and Hadi Subiyanto -- liven things up a bit, so its not a total disaster.
Then there’s the “travel porn” branch, efforts that offer postcard perfection and entice moviegoers to blow their savings on airfare and overseas accommodations (Out of Africa, Under the Tuscan Sun).
Lending fine support, Cobie Smulders (2012's " The Avengers ") plays Katie's new friend and confidante Jo, while David Lyons (2010's " Eat Pray Love ") takes major advantage of his glazed-over eyes (kudos to the make-up people) as the hard-drinking Detective Tierney.
The character (David Lyons, "Eat Pray Love," TV's 'Revolution') is also a cardboard villain, a raging monster.
She's at the centre, but the fine supports bolster the narrative, with Viola Davis (Doubt) the stand-out as Liz's best buddy, Delia.
She's already been told that having a child is like 'getting a tattoo on your face' by publisher friend Delia (Viola Davis, "Doubt").
However, Javier Bardem (Love in the Time of Cholera) who plays Felipe, is a wonderful actor and portrays his character well.
She is joined by other wonderful actors: Gina Rodriguez (2016's " Deepwater Horizon "), whose Chicago medic Anya may not be as tough as she lets on; Tessa Thompson (2017's " Thor: Ragnarok "), whose restrained, measured Josie hides untold pains and sadness behind the sleeves of her shirts; Tuva Novotny (2010's " Eat Pray Love "), whose Cass has lost the person she once was in the shadow of tragedy; Jennifer Jason Leigh (2015's " Anomalisa ") as Dr. Ventress, shielding her own personal reasons for why she is so determined to learn the genesis and motive of the anomalies all around them; and Oscar Isaac (2017's " Star Wars: Episode VIII ?
I should also note here that Javier Bardem, most famous for being the worldâs creepiest dude in No Country For Old Men, transforms in Eat Pray Love into a completely charming romantic lead, but you may have to see this to believe it.
And the incidental men in the movie -- Javier Bardem ( No Country for Old Men ), Billy Crudup ( Watchmen ) Richard Jenkins ( The Visitor ), James Franco ( The Great Raid ), and Hadi Subiyanto -- liven things up a bit, so its not a total disaster.
Having transformed a child’s mental health struggles into a madcap yet melancholy adventure with Inside Out , the director Pete Docter now makes merry with a midlife crisis.