Julie & Julia (2009)
Food: the quickest way to a man’s heart. Remember that one ladies.
A woman verging on thirty (Amy Adams) and frustrated in a temp secretary job takes on a yearlong culinary quest: cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s (Meryl Streep) “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” She chronicles her trials and tribulations in a blog that catches on with the food crowd.
I do not cook, I wish I really could because then I could have so much more food that I wanted, but I don’t. However, I do love food, and that is why throughout this whole film, I was just holding my stomach.
It seemed like a challenge for the makers of this film, because they are taking two sources of material, and making it into one and I think that’s where the problem lies. The setting of post-WWII Paris where Julia Child’s story takes place is so intoxicating, that every time we cut away we to New York, I couldn’t wait to get back to it. At times, I just felt like these were two movies about the same subject, copy-and-pasted together.
However, despite this problem with the film, I still found myself enjoying a lot of what’s going on here. I think the overall pleasant mood to this film, and the fact that it just does everything with a smile, is what works here. The whole time I was expecting a standard “chick flick” that was going to be all about cooking, which it was, but it was all so fun to watch, and I had a better time than I actually expected.
Meryl Streep as you can already tell just from seeing that she’s in this film does an amazing job as Julia Child. I had no idea who this chick was before this movie, but after wards I checked her out, and I must say Meryl nails it. She is so alive and flamboyant here that I went from thinking of her as just the PBS cooking lady to somebody who could confront all of life’s challenges with a smile. Amy Adams is her usual cutesy-bootsy self here as Julie, and although her story isn’t as interesting as Streep’s, she still does a good job here and brings out a likability to her character. Also, it was awesome to see Stanley Tucci and Chris Messina up in herre doing great jobs at playing the main-boos for both of these gals, because they are always a pleasure to see, and here they are not different.
Consensus: Streep’s great performance, and along with the overall happy and joyous mood, Julie & Julia is an enjoyable, if flawed treat. See what I did there…
6/10=Rental!!
That the Julia half is wonderful and the Julie half is just sort of there seems to be more or less the universal reaction. I didn’t dislike the Julie half as some did, but it was uninteresting and the script never tied the two parts together in a meaningful way (for example, it could have done a lot more to explore the theme of writing as self-expression).
Streep has said in interviews that she’s been a huge Julia Child fan for years and jumped at the chance to play her on screen. You can definitely see the Julia love in her performance.
Both stories do a good job of coming together in the end, and I liked that element. Also, Streep just is having a ball here, and therefore so did I while watching this performance.
Great review
Thanks for stopping by at my blog too! I’ll be looking through your other reviews as well, as you have some movies I’d love to see!
Thanks! I will keep on coming out with those reviews!
I loved this movie!! I did a quick review of it on my own blog. It’s just so pleasant, and I found that refreshing. The thing I hated most was Amy Adams’ haircut – very-Miranda from “Sex and the City”.
She did remind me very much of that same cut too. Glad you liked it though!
If I was smart enough, I’d figure out how to delete all the Amy Adams (no offense, Amy — you know I love you but you got shafted!) scenes and make the whole movie about Streep as Julia Childs.
True, but I didn’t mind Adams’ story as much.
For one, I felt the Julie half of the story was more interesting than the Julia one. Meryl Streep had the flashy role of portraying Julia Child while Amy Adams had a relatively thankless task of playing a somewhat annoying character.
i thought it was better than saving private ryan and more exciting than big and philadelphia. only good movie i liked with tom hanks before he became a real political poster boy racist asshole.
wrong movie. my bad