It's not a movie, it's a lifestyle

Eat Pray Love is just about the last movie I want to see. I passed on the book because it just had the smell of one of those “life could be beautiful” books that forgets to mention that the simple things in life are so easy to enjoy . . . when you have tons of money. And the whole movie tie-in raft of marketing that hit, what? About 3 months ago? Offering my very own Julia Roberts-inspired Balinese jewelry box just kind of made me gag a little. Evidently the real title is Eat Pray Love Shop. I was turned off before I even got a look at the flick.

The other thing is that I’m kind of over the whole wish fulfillment/aspirational thing right now. I’m just not buying the concept that lifestyle equals destiny. If I buy this handbag, act like I’ve got all the money and time in the world and dream big – it’s just going to happen. No thank you. And I'm really starting to suspect that the whole thing was really just to sell me that handbag. I don't need another handbag, or even the fabulous life that is sure to go with it. I’m having all I can deal with just being here, now, living my bag lunch and public transit kind of life. Anything that doesn’t fit with that reality is just noise.

And that’s just it. That kind of thing will never be my real life, and I just don’t have the brain capacity to add in something that’s not going to happen. Much as I wouldn’t be Angelina Jolie in a spy flick (I’d be the woman who gets shot by a stray bullet in the opening sequence, stupidly trying to cross a street while action heroes are trying to get their Matrix on), I would also not be Julia Roberts in a RomCom. Even if I magically came across a free, year-long world tour, I would not be pounced upon by gorgeous men every time I showed my passport at customs. I wouldn’t be hit on by Javier Bardem in v-neck cashmere. I’d be hit on by Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men (not the sociopathic murderer part; the bad haircut and monotone voice part). If I’m lucky. Mostly, I’d just spend most of my time in exotic locales talking to middle aged couples from England or Germany who are looking for the best place to eat for cheap.

I’m not Julia Roberts. I’m never going to be. And I really wish they’d stop acting like I want to be Julia Roberts. I’m fine just like I am. And that’s not to say that I don’t want to watch escapist movies any more. I just don’t want to see a main character that some studio exec thinks is my dream self. After they’ve been constructed into perfect people with perfect lives, they end up being pretty damn smug for someone so damn boring. Just make an interesting movie about an interesting person, flaws, bumps, emotional bruises and all. I don’t have to want to be the heroine. I just want to have to spend a couple of hours seeing their life.