Rome - yes, India - pass, Bali - OK

Perhaps no movie should have been made from Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat Pray Love,� the memoir of her year-long journey of self-discovery that remained on the bestseller list for three years. But then millions of readers — nine million copies have been sold — would have been disappointed.

The trouble is that there is no plot nor inherent drama in Gilbert’s book. Basically a travelogue and inner monologue, it benefits from mostly good writing, observation and an intense awareness and concern with self. The travelogue translates to the screen; the rest gets left behind.

Director Ryan Murphy (“Glee,� “Nip ‘n Tuck�) and co-writer Jennifer Salt hewed close to the book, with sodden results for the screenplay. The film, gorgeously photographed by Robert Richardson, is sumptuous to behold: atmospheric Roman backstreets, stunning Tuscan hills and roads, a lavish Indian wedding, incomparably lush Bali. But the narrative is an episodic collection of nuggets of wisdom, bromides and suggestions — oh, so many suggestions — about how to live.

As in the book, Gilbert escapes an unhappy marriage, dashes through an affair with a much younger man, then sets out for a year on the road with stops in Rome, at an Indian ashram and finally Bali, where she returns to a spiritual healer she met years before on a writing assignment. She is seeking balance and, of course, herself. After all, she has been “running away from or to a man� since she was 15. You’ll not be surprised that in the end she finds her balance with — yes — a man.

While it is good to see Julia Roberts back on the screen, it would be better if she had something to do. Mostly she smiles — ah, such a smile — and listens and listens. She is warm and comfortable like an old friend, but the film makes us forget what a formidable actress Roberts can be. Only near the end does she get to act with real power and pathos.

Amazingly, this uber-female film gets its best performances and best scenes from men. Billy Crudup is charming as the feckless husband who at first refuses to divorce Gilbert, and James Franco makes the younger boyfriend fragile and tender. (Did I believe the scenes of Roberts and Franco doing their wash in a laundromat? No, but they were sweet.)

In India, Richard Jenkins plays Richard, a recovering alcoholic from Texas with a dark secret that he shares with Gilbert in a shattering demonstration of histrionics. And in Bali, Javier Bardem is Felipe, a Brazilian tour guide still mourning a failed marriage in Australia. His scene with his “darling� son — who is 21 — is lovely, complete with the on-the-mouth kiss Felipe has given the young man since childhood.

While it would be easy to dismiss the film for its overload of sententiousness, that would be unfair. The entire Italian section is delightful and the Italian characters — and one Swedish student — are as warm and vital as the Italian sun. One, from a barber’s chair, delivers the pitch-perfect observation that Americans don’t know how to relax and enjoy doing nothing. “Dolce fa niente� — nothing is sweet, he says. And the food is gorgeous just as is Roberts as she eats it.

Just as good is the musical score, perhaps the best of the year. Although it may seem odd that Roberts eats pasta to the soaring German of an aria from “The Magic Flute,� Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold� and especially “Harvest Moon� are just right. And Joabim for Bardem is magic.

Oddly, Gilbert never dealt with the “real� world in her book. Only for a minute or two in the film, when she arrives in India, is the screen filled with the pulsing life of begging children, dusty roads and dirty water. The movie is entirely solipsistic, all about Gilbert and the star who plays her, about a woman who can refuse a divorce settlement and afford to travel and live on the advance for the memoir she will write.

“Eat Pray Love� is showing in both Millerton and Great Barrington. The film is rated PG13 for brief strong language, some sexual references and near male nudity. (Actually rear male nudity, and many women around me gave approving gasps.)