Julia Roberts in 'Eat Pray Love': the trailer

Elizabeth Gilbert's blockbuster memoir "Eat Pray Love" is headed to the big screen with big star Julia Roberts in August. On Thursday, Universal released the first trailer for the film.

The movie seems to have some of the appeal of the book: lush settings, revelations, handsome men (some caddish, some not). On her website, Gilbert says, "There is something surreal" about seeing her memoir being turned into a movie, "but then again, there has been something surreal about 'Eat Pray Love' from the beginning. I have never entirely understood the rocket-like trajectory of that book, and so -- with the movie as with all of it -- I stand back, amazed, watching it all unfold and wondering at this strange turn of destiny."

Having very briefly met Gilbert, I was struck by how much Julia Roberts -- who always seems a lot like Julia Roberts to me -- has absorbed some of Gilbert's aspect. As an author, watching that on screen must be a bit surreal. 

-- Carolyn Kellogg