Thousands of men or women have probably awakened one morning and said to their spouse, “I don’t want to be married anymore.” But unlike Liz Gilbert who starts Eat Pray Love with this scenario, they were not afforded the opportunity to take a year off and travel the world to “find themselves.”

Before Liz leaves her stunned husband (Billy Crudup) and buys her ticket, she takes up with a young actor who looks more like her son than her lover (cougar territory here?) They do laundry together, spoon on the bed until she sulks and sleeps on the floor. Ready now for that trip, she takes off.

With decent cinematography by Robert Richardson, the scenery looks like a travelogue and Roberts is beautifully lit. Every smile is a dental advertisement! Unfortunately, the characters never resonant or draw us into this story. With one exception -- Academy Award-nominated Best Actor (for The Visitor) Richard Jenkins, who portrays Richard from Texas, another guest at the ashram. Richard sees that Liz can’t figure out how to start meditating and lends a hand. It’s in a poignant scene with her that he finally lets go and confesses why he’s there. I hope this powerful and resonating performance isn’t forgotten at Oscar time.

Crudup doesn’t appear in the film long enough to think about, and Franco seems okay in his persona but fails to sustain any chemistry with Roberts. However, Javier Bardem (Felipe), a wonderful actor, plays his part well. In one funny and amorous scene, Liz can’t stop kissing Felipe. Yet later when he wants her to take a boat trip with him, she refuses -- and that confused me.  

In scene after scene with Roberts, the majority of the time she’s smiling and looking radiant. I found nothing to show a woman out to rediscover herself. Early on, when Roberts’ Liz sits in her bathroom praying to a God she admits she’s never thought to pray to before, she cries real tears. Instead of being drawn in for one second and believing a real person was doing this, I kept wondering what Roberts was thinking of to get those tears flowing.

Usually movies based on true stories are well-received. The excerpts I’ve heard from Elizabeth Gilberts’ book sound quite inspiring and well-written. But something happened in the book-to-film translation. For example, Liz’s pleasure when eating in Italy might as well have been in an Italian diner in Manhattan, as she never really bonds with her instant friends.

I never believed Liz felt the power of prayer in India. All I saw in her prayer scenes was a beautiful woman full of smiles. The inner peace and balance of love she supposedly achieved in Bali didn’t come across for me.

Fans of the Eat, Pray, Love memoir might enjoy this film; others will find themselves checking their watches more than once.

(Released by Columbia Pictures and rated "PG-13" on appeal for brief strong language, some sexual references and male rear nudity.)