Eat Pray Love

Adapting a book to a movie is difficult and daunting, especially if the story/novel is told from the first person.  The movie is then bogged down in narration because the story requires that the audience know exactly what the character is thinking at that moment in time.  And that's exactly how the movie Eat Pray Love starts out.  The thing is, novels and movies are different mediums, and each has their particular strengths.  Books lend themselves to a psycological/mental intimacy that few movies ever achieve (although Memento and Black Swan are pretty near perfect in that regard).  Why?  Because books use words.  Movies, on the other hand, use words, but the impact of movies stems from the visual impact the story carries.  For example, the furtive glance, the pristine scenery, the physical comedy all lend themselves better to a visual medium.  And other than the beautiful scenery of Italy, Bali and India, Eat Pray Love fails in almost every regard.