Eat Pray Love, the movie

My book is Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I’m not finished with the book yet, but because of the way the book is divided into three sections (Italy, India, and Indonesia) and I’ve finished all of Italy and am working on India right now. So my answers are going to come from only those parts of the book.

                First of all, this book is a true story, so the author is the main character. For this book, I think that some challenges a filmmaker would have in turning this book into a movie would be that for one, nothing is actually happening in ‘real time.’ Most of it is just the author’s thoughts after the fact. If I were making this into a movie, The whole idea of thoughts after-the-fact would kind have to be taken out, and replaced with mostly real-time interactions.

                A scene I believe is necessary to keep is the section of the book where the author is going over her divorce, especially when she’s in the car with her friend and they’re talking about how she wants her husband to sign the divorce agreement and everyone is ‘signing it.’ Another scene I think is very important is when the author breaks down in the car and Giovanni comforts her and takes her to a statue to help calm her down. The final scene which is very important would be in India, when she finally achieves her state of meditation, and then  when she’s finally about to be totally connected to her spirit or whatever the blue-ness in her meditation symbolized, she stopped and yelled out ‘I’m not ready yet.’

                There were actually a lot of things I would cut. I would definitely cut the three to four chapters where she talks about her sex life and that she is sex deprived. The younger guy hitting on her could go too, because it was kind of weird and seemed random. Another thing I’d cut if I were making this book into a movie is the part where her sister comes to Italy to visit her, because I didn’t really see a point in it.