Too preachy, indulgent, and everybody cries. Even the extras.

Every woman I know, and millions of others, have read and loved Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. The title tells it all. Now that I’ve seen the over 2 hour version, I am glad I did not read the book.

Liz Gilbert (Julie Roberts) had everything, but she’s unfulfilled. She feels empty. She cries. She has a husband, Stephen (Billy Crudup) who, okay, he’s a loser without ambitions, but he adores her. Liz is a successful, published writer with an editor, Delia (Viola Davis) who adores her. But, she wants more. I didn’t believe her “inner struggle” for one minute. It did not ring true.

So, Liz dumps the husband, and immediately takes up with a young actor, David (James Franco), who adores her. But, he’s an off-off Broadway actor with a studio walkup in the East East Village.

Liz needs a few good hardships but instead decides to give her husband everything in a divorce except, according to the movie, enough money to live like a wealthy socialite for a year in Italy, India and Indonesia.

I wept for Liz.

This is an indulgent journey for self-discovery and we are supposed to care.

The first part of the journey is in Italy where Liz finds friends immediately who adore her and a sexy Italian who she hires to teach her the language. He’s got a girlfriend – the love part comes later. Liz eats and gains weight! WOW! Liz is showing all of us it is okay to enjoy life and gain 7 pounds in pursuit of life!

The last time I ate pizza was in Rome in 1994. It was fantastic. (Should I write a book about it?) You pay by the weight. Yes, Italians eat well, but they also walk everywhere. Americans have chosen – we do not walk except up and down aisles.

David is a devotee of an Indian guru so after 4 months in Rome, Liz takes off for an ashram somewhere in India. The film does not name the guru or city. But guess what? The guru is in New York! You’d think Liz would have checked out the guru’s travel schedule or at least told David when he called and asked her how ashram life was. Oh, never mind!

I spent a year in an ashram studying kriya yoga in Bihar, India. I lived in a dormitory. The entire ashram went silent for one month. In Liz’s ashram you buy a name-plate that says “I am being silent”. Of course I was looking forward to this part of the movie. Instead, it falls dead flat. Soul-searching Liz is befriended by Richard from Texas (Richard Jenkins) a real buffoon with platitudes. I would have sat Richard from Texas down and told him to slap on that name-plate – for good.

Empowering women – that is what this is really about – Richard from Texas calls Liz “Groceries” because she likes to eat.

Well, it’s time for Liz to take off for Bali and she goes to see her toothless guru, Nyomo (I. Gusti Ayu Puspawati), who started her on this journey a year ago with psychic predictions about her future. He predicted she would return and learn from him. In a glorious jungle villa, Liz settles in. Soon she meets Felipe (Javier Bardem) a successful import-exporter Brazilian suffering from an ugly divorce. He is wounded and I did not care.

Liz doesn’t want to give up her self-discovery to find “balance” to merge with Felipe, but he adores her. They have a fight but Liz’s guru Nyomo tells her it is okay to love. And she finds her “word”.

I couldn’t believe how narcissist Liz was, yet everyone adored her.

Did author Gilbert confide how much her journey to balance cost? Gilbert paid for the trip with an advance she received on a book she planned to write. So it was a journey with a manuscript due-date.

The screenplay is by director Ryan Murphy and Jennifer Salt. They left nothing out of the book, hence the long running time. I was bored after Italy. There were so many trite conversations about spirituality and balance and finding oneself, I cried too – of boredom.

IMDb.com lists Ryan Murphy of directing 81 episodes of the sexually-charged Nip/Tuck. There’s no sexual tension between Liz and her men. Bardem – who should have been exuding his raw sexual energy – plays Liz’s manservant.

Roberts, looking lovely and real (I loved those mosquito bites on her arms in India), cries a lot. Everybody cried. This was a journey laden with tears. I saw extras crying.

Movie stars of Roberts’ status require a strong equal-status director to actually direct them with a strong hand and stronger vision. Murphy, who has quickly risen to fame with his hugely successful TV series “Glee” is not up to the task. He must have given Roberts a wide perch for interpreting her presentation of Liz and the entire production.

It is said they will work together on another project, a comedy to be released in 2012. Let’s hope Roberts meets up with Christian Troy.

They took the lousy Soderbergh/Clooney template for OCEAN’S ELEVEN, TWELVE and THIRTEEN and intentionally made this stinker.

They tried but they couldn’t pull off taking great bits from other movies and reworking them. DUPLICITY plods along. It’s boring, tedious, and the con doesn’t come together. Excluding other actors and actresses from shining in interesting supporting roles, all we have is weak characterizations for the stars.

DUPLICITY starts in 2003 at a U.S. embassy party in Dubai. When a good-looking man at an embassy party approaches any woman, she would show interest. After all, it’s Dubai and it is an embassy party!

CIA agent Claire Stenwick (Julie Roberts) shows disdain for MI6 agent Ray Koval (Clive Owen) but that must be her imperial come-on. A quick cut shows them in his hotel room. Presumably, after slipping him a ‘roofie’, they make love and then Claire steals his classified papers. So, she knew who he was all along. He was the dupe.

Ray, in lots of trouble over being hoodwinked by the fast sex and losing important papers, spends most of the next few years looking for Claire and obsessing over her.

Jumping all over in time, a too-slick soundtrack, running around all over the world, and using those multiple screens that I hate and never work, we find Ray in Rome when he notices Claire. Catching up to her, they engage in their verbal pas de deux that is so 2006 James Bond/Vesper Lynd, and the filmmakers are so pleased with it, we get to hear it over and over again.

Eventually, the plot takes shaky shape. Both are working opposite ends of a scam involving pharmaceuticals. Claire has been hired by Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson) as his chief of security and Ray is working for his arch-rival, loud Richard Garsik (Paul Giamatti). Claire and Ray are now corporate spies. Claire has a 9 to 5 job and a boss.

Get this: Claire and Ray spend years as lovers and working together but do not trust each other. Claire is always testing him. I started getting bored.

Julia Roberts is now in a constellation where she cannot play real women. That smirk and disregarding glance quickly gets tedious. As the star of the film, Claire has complete command over the con game and Owen is playing George Clooney. Problem is, Owen’s face isn’t soft enough to carry off being led around by his nose. I couldn’t find anything about Claire that made Ray a complete wimp. What spy skills did Claire see in Ray?

Where is Claire’s charm? Whatever it is, the filmmakers are contractually obligated to keep reminding us Julia is gorgeous. There is a wonderful compliment Owen says to Roberts at the end of the film. Don’t leave the theater without remembering Julia is a goddess.

And then you walk into the lobby and think, so it was all about their greed? Couldn’t Claire have had a gambling problem or a teenage son on a meth binge?

This is my second viewing of CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR and on DVD it is enhanced by the smaller screen, and by bringing Julia Roberts’s Southern Belle sugar-drawl portrayal down a notch. Director Mike Nichols, who already did one movie with Roberts (CLOSER), has once again given her a role tailored to her uber-movie star status.

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin adapted George Crile’s book ‘Charlie Wilson’s War.’ (I have the hardcover) giving Texas Representative Charlie Wilson a braggadocio character with egomaniacal colorings. But Wilson did get the job done of aiding the Mujahideen and crushing the Soviet Union occupation in the 1980s.

Wilson orchestrated the U.S. proxy war with the Soviet Union. Somebody had to step up. Apparently, Wilson had access to the money to do it.

Wilson interrupted his booze-filled, cocaine-sniffing, womanizing lifestyle to decide it was he who was going to give tons of money and military weapons to the Afghans. Maybe it was to impress his on-off girlfriend, the 6th richest woman in Texas, Joanne Herring (Roberts).

After you have everything money can buy and all your friends have money, you have to do something to set yourself apart from the obscenely wealthy group you run with. You need a cause to be known for. Herring decides she will use her power and influence with world leaders to help Afghanistan fight the invasion by the Soviet Union.

Maybe she has family in the mountains of Afghanistan?

While Hanks really walks the walk of a Texas blowhard and it is fascinating to watch his performance, once again it is Philip Seymour Hoffman as CIA operative Gust Avrakotos who steals every scene he’s in. Hoffmann knows exactly how to use his physical characteristics to make a bold statement.

The DVD – I’ll admit I watched it on a friend’s high tech sophisticated equipment – boasts a terrific widescreen transfer. The extras are two featurettes worth watching. The Making of Charlie Wilson’s War has the three stars talking about how they felt portraying real-life people, and includes footage of the fun they had on the set. Not only are they paid a lot of money, but they have to have fun! The real Charlie Wilson and glamorous Joanne Herring were often on the set enjoying the festivities.
The other featurette is called Who is Charlie Wilson? We are led to believe that Wilson, a relatively minor State Representative, played a significant role in the ending of the Cold War. (I thought that honor went to Pope John Paul the Great.) Wilson certainly has laid claim to this fact and brags, in a highly entertaining fashion, about his unconventional lifestyle. Joanne Herring, clearly delighted that Julia Roberts immortalized her on film, is also interviewed, as are Sorkin and Nichols. The disc has audio tracks and subtitles in English, French and Spanish.

R-Rated / 100 minutes

QUOTE: Beautiful people’s selfish sex lives, tears, and glossy infidelity. Owen and Law weep for Roberts.

The four characters in CLOSER all spout platitudes as if they are acting in a stage play. Patrick Marber wrote the screenplay based on his 1997 London stage hit. No one talks normally or says anything sounding remotely real. They are all acting in the play, but this time it’s directed by Mike Nichols and there are close-ups. When a playwright writes the screenplay, he sees his words as sacred text.

Stage plays do not necessarily translate well to film. It is a different kind of beast. The pacing is different. The language has another tempo.

You’ll hear what I mean.

The pedigree is in place: Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen. What a beautiful cast! Now add Mike Nichols, a 73 year-old iconic director. Give them a play about lying and cheating. Add lots of weeping so the selfish characters have a flaw – they are weak crybabies.

I kept wondering if, in Marber’s play, everyone told Anna (Roberts) she was gorgeous and a goddess, or, is it a mandatory clause in a major female movie star’s contract?

Dan (Jude Law) writes obituaries for a London newspaper. While walking to work, he rescues Alice (Natalie Portman), who has just gotten hit by a taxi. He takes Alice, a stripper running away from a lover in New York, to a hospital. Flash forward a few years: Dan is having his book jacket photo taken by beautiful Anna. He immediately falls madly in love with her. His first novel, about Alice, will soon be published. Alice, wildly insecure about Dan’s love for her, confronts Anna at this first meeting. Anna denies flirting with Dan, but agrees to take Alice’s photo. A year later, the photo will turn up in Anna’s exhibition.

Dan decides to go on an internet sex chat room as Anna and sets up a meeting between her and some horny dude who turns out to be Larry (Clive Owen), a dermatologist. They have raunchy, instant text-messaging sex. Dan gets Larry off. Larry goes to meet Anna at her favorite haunt, an aquarium. They begin an affair because she is so beautiful, and they marry.

But Dan wants Anna for himself. He stalks her and they begin an affair. Anna tells Larry about the affair and she cries. Dan tells Alice he is in love with Anna and he cries. Alice cries. Dan and Anna begin to live together. Larry cries and can’t live without Anna. She is a living goddess. Larry begs her to come back to him. Larry is so miserable that he wanders into a strip club and finds Alice working there. Larry, once again, gets raunchy. Then Anna has sex with Larry so he will sign the divorce papers. She tells Dan. He starts to cry.

I kept waiting for someone to utter Woody Allen’s infamous declaration: “The heart wants what the heart wants.”

What Larry and Dan want to know comes down to is this: Anna, who gave you the better orgasm? Who has the bigger penis?

Larry and Dan were one scene away from having sex with each other. Wasn’t it creepy for Dan to be on a chat room pretending to be a horny, freaky woman? I asked my husband: would you ever do that?

CLOSER is about glossy infidelity. The message is clear: beautiful people are entitled to do whatever they want. There are no consequences.

Owen has the more demanding, complex part. He knows it and works every scene to his advantage. But then he has to loosen his tie, beg and weep. You would think he would be outshone by the dazzling beauty of Law, but Nichols clearly favors Owen. Law needs a director who sexually appreciates him; otherwise, he comes across as feminine, small-boned, and cute. Nichols likes Larry’s dirty talk and sexual brutality, but Anna prefers Dan because he is “gentler.” Roberts, who has the ethereal market all to herself, at least has chosen a mature role. but she is emotionally distant, even when her eyes get watery and her close-ups get dewy.

Credits:
Director: Mike Nichols
Screenwriter: Patrick Marber
Based on the play by: Patrick Marber
Producers: Mike Nichols, John Calley, Cary Brokaw
Executive producers: Scott Rudin, Celia Costas, Robert Fox
Director of photography: Stephen Goldblatt
Production designer: Tim Hatley
Co-producer: Michael Haley
Costumes: Ann Roth
Editors: John Bloom, Antonia Van Drimmelen

Cast:
Anna: Julia Roberts
Dan: Jude Law
Alice: Natalie Portman
Larry: Clive Owen