me!

Perhaps you haven't noticed but modern movies by, for and about women deal with one hugely dubious subject - self-involvement. It's not exactly flattering and this new subgenre reached something of a nadir with Michael Patrick King's wretched "Sex and the City 2," which added a bizarre obsession with obscenely expensive shoes to the mix.

There's no where to go but up, right?

Ryan Murphy's film version of Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love" - retitled "Eat Pray Love" by Hollywood marketing - is something of an anti-"Sex and the City 2." The heroine's searching in this film is for her soul.

Not some designer label.

That makes a big difference - that and star Julia Roberts who reaches deep within herself to make the narcissism of this film's heroine palatable. Roberts works overtime - the star is on screen for the film's entire 133-minute running time - and she works wonders.

While I could care less about Elizabeth Gilbert's entitled problems, Julia's "Liz Gilbert" effectively sucked me in. I was hooked. I didn't even care if her search was for a rare pair of Manolo Blahniks. Luckily, "Eat Pray Love" is about her search for identity - and, by extention, peace.