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For a while now, movies based on popular books have been all the rage—both with audiences and award committees alike. So, with her latest, Julie & Julia, director Nora Ephron is doing double duty: basing a movie on two books…and two true stories about two determined cooks. One lived in France; the other lived in Queens. One wrote a ground-breaking cookbook; the other wrote a blog. One’s a delight; the other…well…not so much.
In 2002, Julie Powell (Amy Adams) moved to Queens with her husband, Eric (Chris Messina). A government worker by day, Julie had a passion for cooking—and she’d unwind at night by creating culinary masterpieces in their tiny kitchen.
A frustrated writer, Julie decided to start writing again. This time, she’d write a blog about her cooking. The goal: to cook her way through all 524 recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in just one year.
Julie & Julia also tells the story of Julie’s inspiration, Julia Child (Meryl Streep), who (coincidentally) moved to Paris with her husband, Paul (Stanley Tucci) in 1949. Though she loved her new home, like Julie, she found a true passion for food, which brought her to the famous Le Cordon Bleu—and, eventually, inspired her work on a French cookbook for Americans.
So Julie & Julia is based on two books. Julia’s parts are taken from her memoir, My Life in France. And Julie’s story is the one that was eventually published as Julie & Julia, a collection of Powell’s blog entries from her hectic year of French cooking. Like many personal blogs, it’s pretty one-sided—which, while okay in small, daily doses, becomes rather exasperating when you’re reading entry after self-absorbed entry in a book. But my hope was that Nora Ephron and her able cast and crew could soften the blow a bit and make it work.
In splitting the film between Julie and Julia, skipping back and forth from one story to the other, Ephron does soften things…a bit. Even casting the always-adorable Adams as Julie helped…a bit. Unfortunately, though, that self-absorption still comes shining through. And instead of sweet and bubbly and lovable (you know…like the usual Amy Adams character), Julie comes off as whiny and self-obsessed. She spends most of the movie fixating on her blog and her fans and the number of comments she gets (all the while nagging at her poor, supportive husband) until she eventually becomes a cute little monster. Even the food takes a backseat to her obsessing. All that nagging and narcissism is simply exhausting—and, eventually, her scenes feel like something you need to endure before you get to see Meryl again.
Streep, meanwhile, is a joy to watch. She’s vibrant and animated and totally over-the-top—which, of course, is exactly how Julia Child really was. After a while, in fact, you might just forget that she’s not the real Julia—because she’s that convincing. The character’s joie de vivre is absolutely infectious—and whenever she’s on-screen, you can’t help but smile. And perhaps that’s part of the problem for poor Julie: she’s no Julia Child.
Blame it on the script…or on the source material…or on Meryl Streep’s overpowering brilliance. But, whatever the case, half of Julie & Julia is chocolate torte, and half is beef aspic. And, unfortunately, you can’t enjoy the one without choking down the other.
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