I have this little problem with movies. I don't enjoy them. This is not something you can say without people looking at you like you've just declared that kittens are evil.
But I can't help the way I feel, and I've felt this way for as long as I can remember. One reason is that I daydream relentlessly and so have a hard time following even simple storylines. Another is that I am an odor savant. Once I acclimate to the intoxicating popcorn aroma, I am bombarded with the noxious scent of a hundred or so humans off-gassing everything from clothing to perspiration.
But my problem with movies isn't just the theater experience. It's that, if the movie isn't exactly what I want it to be - and let's face it, every movie can't be "Lost in Translation" or "Leaving Las Vegas" or "Phantom of the Paradise" - then the experience leaves me unhinged and unhappy.
Case in point: Last week I went to see "Eat Pray Love," with Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem. This is the movie based on the book of the same name. I enjoyed the book. Elizabeth Gilbert is an immensely likable narrator whose difficult decision to split from her husband and her ensuing search for comfort and meaning was evocatively portrayed. Enter Julia Roberts and some schlocky screenwriting, and the result is the movie version of complexity: Beautiful Face plus Beautiful Scenery plus Available Male equals Life Figured Out.
Who wouldn't walk out of this movie craving their own dirty divorce? What woman wouldn't drive home with scenes of Bali huts dancing in her head, throw open her front door to the crushing smell of three indoor-dwelling dogs, and, ala punk band The Talking Heads, scream, "This is not my beautiful house!" while her husband, after two lovely hours with Julia, likewise laments, "This is not my beautiful wife!"?
Don't get me wrong. I love Julia, and if in the future an agent calls me to say Julia is going to play me in my blockbuster memoir (loosely titled Don't Eat, Don't Pray, Don't Love), I will be overjoyed. I will not tell the agent that I am morally opposed to Julia playing me because her beauty will eclipse my ponderous story of pain and misery. Instead I will jump up and down in my smelly little house and forget about the deeper messages my memoir is trying to convey. I will forget altogether that I want to be taken seriously as a writer.
Recently I was perusing an old diary in an attempt to jog my memory about a relationship I had in my 20s. On Aug. 28, 1985, I logged the following entry, quoted here in its entirety: "Severe and horrible depression. Details later."
There are two problems with this entry: One is that almost all of my diary entries from age 12 to 33 are some variation of this sentiment, and as such, it brought nothing new to the table. The other problem is that, in spite of the promise to myself, no details followed. None! There was no elucidation, either the next day or within the next decade, as to what, on Aug. 28, 1985, was causing me to be so despondent.
Which I think is my problem with movies. Seduced by the promise of emotion and drama, I find myself endlessly searching but rarely finding the real answers to the questions movies posit. Severe and horrible depression? Thank you, "Leaving Las Vegas" screenwriter, for allowing Nicholas Cage to follow through on his plan to quietly drink himself to death. But no thank you, "Eat Pray Love" screenwriter, for glossing over the hard stuff in Liz Gilbert's book. By the time Julia finds Javier, the "Love" part feels one-dimensional. It's not fair to the book, nor is it true to the experience.
Poor Liz. But at least she got to be gorgeous.
E-mail Dana Shavin at danalise@juno.com.