You can tell right away that Ryan Murphy‘s Eat Pray Love is, at the very least, decently written (by Murphy and Jennifer Salt), engagingly acted (Julia Roberts in her Madwoman of Chaillot mode) and beautifully shot by Robert Richardson. Apparently a quality chick flick. Especially with the travelicious eye candy (Italy, Indonesia, India), plus James Franco, Javier Bardem, Billy Crudup, Richard Jenkins, Viola Davis, etc. Looks like a hit…maybe.

It took Murphy…what, three years to get out of movie jail after Running With Scissors? Good for him, must have taken some doing. Movie-jail terms tend to last four to five years — a year to eighteen months to realize and then face up to the fact that you’re actually in movie jail, and then three-plus years of political maneuvering in order to extricate yourself.