Eat Pray Love (2010)

After a painful divorce, a writer (Julia Roberts) finds herself unfulfilled and without passion or purpose so she takes a year off in her life to take a journey of self discovery that takes her to Italy, India and Indonesia. It's the 2000's equivalent of the 1970s AN UNMARRIED WOMAN but without the unsubtle feminist rhetoric and with a flawed heroine instead of a victim. Still, it's a glossy romanticized journey of self discovery with a sensitive, compassionate Javier Bardem at the end of the rainbow for a prize. Fortnately, the film is laced with generous doses of humor to temper the philosophizing. Visually, the film feeds your taste buds with the Italy section, the India section doesn't shy away from the problems of poverty and forced marriages and the Bali section gives one an illusion of paradise that I suspect doesn't really exist. But if movies give us our dreams then the film has done its job. Directed by GLEE's Ryan Murphy. With James Franco, Billy Crudup, Richard Jenkins and Viola Davis.