After watching Eat Pray Love on opening weekend, my wife announced “I may be through with Julia Roberts forever!” That summed up my feelings pretty well.

Admittedly, Julia Roberts is a true star, the kind they don’t make any more. Who from younger generations can you simply plunk down in any film and have that film instantly become an “event?” (and no, Robert Pattinson doesn’t count!) But let’s face it, her acting is really problematic. She has about 6 ways of delivering lines, and each “way” looks and sounds exactly the same, scene to scene, film to film. Here they are: 1) Through tremulous, whining crying. 2) Affected deadpanning with a little smirk. 3) Deadpanning without the smirk. 4) With an insanely big smile and deep laugh. 5) the moderately irritated comeback. 6) Voice-going-instantly horse and eyes-popping-out yelling while she gently shakes her head back and forth. That’s it. There’s nothing else and there’s nothing in-between. Plus, she is just about the least convincing crier I have ever seen in film. This is a real problem in a film about a woman having a complete breakdown!

Javier Bardem, on the other hand, is someone whose mere presence is reason enough to run out and see a film. The guy is incredible! He’s warm, charismatic, has a great voice, possesses tremendous range, skill and depth as an actor, and exhibits an almost unique combination of sexiness and grittiness. Put simply: the guy has soul. To me, he is the hottest quantity in film right now, and he is the reason my wife and I went to Eat Pray Love.

Without Javier Bardem this film would be absolutely intolerable. It’s still pretty damn bad with him, but at least you don’t feel like Julia Roberts picked your pocket. He takes over the film in the last third and given almost nothing to work with in the script he somehow makes you like and care and bond with his character as if he were the main character of the film, without over-acting or grandstanding in any way. It’s remarkable. From the first instance of seeing him driving on some country road in Bali in his open-top jeep, crazy hair waving in the wind, unshaven with retro sun glasses, grooving to some 70’s tune, you get this instant jolt of energy and happiness. My wife and I were poking each other and laughing. It was like the film suddenly came to life.

Okay, so what can I say about the film itself? Basically it is a pretty superficial film that leaves you with very little. It has a bad score, a highly problematic lead actress (imagine what Kate Winslet could have done with this role,) an unconvincing story arc, and completely unremarkable dialog. It does feature several fine supporting actors (Viola Davis, Billy Crudup, Rickard Jenkins) laboring heroically to make something of the script and their poorly drawn characters, but for the most part, they fail.

The biggest problem with the film is that you never get a sense that this woman is in any kind of real emotional trouble. The vast majority of the time it looks like she’s just enjoying a really sweet vay-cay with great food, friendly people, beautiful scenery and plenty of money to burn! The scenes in Rome are straight out of Under the Tuscan Sun. The scenes in India are just bland. The filmmakers couldn’t even be bothered to explain anything that goes on in the ashram. Instead, they rely on a cartoonish smart-mouthed Texan (played with … let’s say “great determination” by Richard Jenkins) who kind of insensitively fires little pearls of wisdom at her like “You wanna get to the castle, girl, you gotta swim the moat.” But you never see her “swimming the moat.” Indeed, she seems pretty damn happy and untroubled there, much happier than she should.

In Bali, Javier Bardem takes over, but there is only so much he can do opposite Julia Roberts. My god, here she is hanging out with this soulful, way-cool Brazilian stud, and she’s acting like nothing special is going on! Even when she finally goes for him in the very end, her flatness in that final scene is just embarrassing. A similar thing happens when Richard Jenkins has his breakdown scene – she’s sitting there looking at him like he suddenly started to speak Russian. She floats through the whole film with an air that says “I’m Julia Roberts. I don’t have to act.” It gets old.

The only thing I took away from this film was the question of why Javier Bardem can’t get better movies than this.