Two books feature in director Jeff Baena’s new irreverent brainchild “Spin Me Round”: One is the quintessentially sentimental and aggressively life-affirming “Eat, Pray, Love,” while the other, likely more obscure for American audiences, is Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez’s gritty, nonfiction crime saga “News of a Kidnapping.”
An Olive Garden commercial that devolves into “Eyes Wide Shut,” the film fluctuates between the two distinct modes of these tomes: the artificial, improbable fantasy of a vibrant European trip where all inhibitions are put on hold, and the fear-inducing suspicion that something perverse and worthy of uncovering might be unfolding right under the surface.