'Eat Pray Love" (PG-13) (out of four)

Having not read Elizabeth Gilbert's self-discovery tome of her travels through Italy, India and Indonesia, Bali, I don't have the best-selling book in which to compare the film version of "Eat Pray Love."

On the up side, it offers the chance for a clearer perspective not muddled by expectations, but on the down side, it also makes me wonder if what I felt was missing in the movie was somehow more fleshed out in print. This is usually the case, isn't it?

Julia Roberts plays Liz Gilbert, a writer who has basically become burned out on her life. She's an uninspired author who has fallen into the trappings of life, career, house and husband. Her marriage to Stephen (Billy Crudup) has taken the same turn. He's unable to find himself, too, constantly dreaming about his next career move. At one point, he's thinking of going back to school to get a master's degree.

Early in the film, we're supposed to see Liz sink into this black hole of utter depression as she feels her life is falling apart around her. What could be so bad that tears are streaming down her face in the middle of the night as she soul searches alone in a stark bathroom? It must have happened before we were brought into the opening dialogue of the film, a few chapters prior in the book perhaps?

Minutes later, she's asking for a divorce, and no sooner can we say "on to the next," she is. After locking eyes with a hunky young actor (James Franco) who she watches perform in a lame play, we cut to his cramped New York apartment. A couple of scenes pass and she's been living in the apartment for a while. The relationship isn't working out, and the pair is trying to figure out what led to their discord.

The audience isn't let in on their bickering until a flashback scene, so this pivotal point where she has come to the crossroads and decides to ditch it all has never reached a fever pitch.

"I was an active participant in life," she tells her friend and editor Delia (Viola Davis). "I used to have an appetite for life."

The title of the film is a spoiler in itself as you can see where this is all going: Liz sets out on a picture-perfect journey to three difference places in an effort to reclaim her soul. In Italy, she eats, in India she prays and in Indonesia, she finds love.

While Liz may have a shattered heart and soul, she has deep pockets. Although it's never mentioned in the film leaving another unanswered question -- how can she afford to do all this traveling? -- the real Elizabeth was able to score an advance on a book to fund her fantasy. The journey was, in fact, pre-planned as a writing project.

As one might expect, the cinematography is rich and inviting, but director Ryan Murphy (creator of television hits "Glee" and "Nip/Tuck") moves things along at such a breakneck television-type pace, blink and you'll miss the ruins in Rome or the beauty of Bali.

Roberts appears caught up in the churning, too, straining to show much of a connection to her co-stars. Her scenes with veteran actor Richard Jenkins, who plays a Texan with his own reasons for escaping to Indian ashram, show the most emotional investment. But once again, the two characters bond so quickly, it's difficult to buy into their relationship.

By the time we arrive in Bali, a large part of the film has evolved, giving the final chapter short shrift. Javier Bardem as a Brazilian-born Australian living in Bali plays the overly sensitive Felipe with an earnestness that gives credibility to the "love" part of this three-part travelogue.

Through the fault of the story itself, there's a happy ending that all but contradicts the entire two hours and 10 minutes that's come before it. Considering this trail of self-enlightenment and liberation had an end goal in mind from the very beginning -- that of a mass-produced memoir -- like much of the film itself, this neatly tied up finish should come as no surprise.