Julie and Julia

I grew up in a house where dinner was home cooked at least 5 nights a week. Family dinner was not an event as much as it was the norm. My mom made (still does, just not as much) many wonderful meals in my life and it seemed like she rarely used a recipe; she just knew what went in and how much. I always felt spoiled because I got to eat all of these wonderful meals on a nightly basis. Sunday dinner is still a family event, for the most part. I do not watch the food network, and I never have because I grew up watching my mom cook and that was all I ever needed. However, watching cooking is fun, it is just torture because it makes me even hungrier. That was my worry going in to the movie. I knew it would make me desire really good food. Of course, if it did not make me really hungry, then I would think the movie had not done it's job.

Julie Powell(Amy Adams) is a cubicle worker working a job in 2002 where people who had family die in 9/11 call and air out grievances about the process of cleaning up and money and relief. It is awful and Julie feels all of it. Her friends are all important and rich and Julie becomes the cover girl for a magazine issue that tracks a "lost generation" and Julie decides it is time for a change. She was going to be a writer, but it never worked out, and she decides to write a blog. Her blog will be about her cooking her way through Julia Child's first cookbook. Julie's mission leads her to become very narcissistic, whiny and very needy and her husband has to put up with it all. Now, because this story has been made into a movie, so it is not difficult to see how successful her blog was, but the journey is what matters. Julie is attempting to find meaning in a post 9/11 world and trying to find her purpose in life. By writing her blog she connects to people worldwide who share her love of cooking and her love of Julia Child.

Also, this movie is about Julia Child(Meryl Streep) and her life in France after her husband Paul(A wonderful Stanley Tucci). She is also looking for her purpose and for the meaning in her life and she finds it in french cooking. She goes through a cooking school, even though she is told she possesses no real skill for cooking and then, her part of the movie tracks her attempt to write a cookbook for french food, but she wants to write it in English. It is a book for American cooks without servants, or something to that affect. Paul is wonderfully supportive and the good food gets them through the red scare, various wonderful holidays.

The first thing I noticed about Julie and Julia was the way marriages are portrayed. I know it seems silly to notice that the movie involves 2 pretty functional relationships, but that seems uncommon these days. I loved Meryl and Stanley together and loved to see the older couple get all randy and funny and adorable together. I am not sure this movie gives an accurate portrayal of Julia Child, because I am sure the woman had a nasty streak in her, and the movie treats her as a saint, but that does not take away from how great the two of them are together. Streep is mesmerizing, and I am not one to be normally taken with her. The Julia Child parts of the movie are the funnier parts and the more exotic parts and Streep and Tucci are relishing that fact. They make a wonderful pairing and it is nice to see marriage in a movie shown as a constant source of love and support.

The Julie sections are a little less kind. I love me some Amy Adams, but Julie Powell, as written in this movie, is so whiny that no amount of that Amy Adams charm can fully make up for it. She does well with what she is given, but writer/director Nora Ephran is not as concerned with the Julie side, which is a mistake. The Julie section has be strong to make the Julia section ring more true. Can a cookbook change the world? It changed Julie Powell's world and who knows who that can inspire? But the Julie section is too annoying to really care that much. Chris Messina who plays Amy Adams' husband is also very supportive, but their marriage hits a bit of a bump and he also does the angry thing pretty well.

Julie and Julia did leave me wanting food and did leave me with my mouth watering, so that part was successful. The food all looks amazing and watching Julia and Julie prepare and cook it was fun. Streep's fearless, funny and spot on Julia Child is wondrous and that is never more evident than when we see her cooking. She is clearly enjoying herself and that helps us enjoy ourselves, as we watch. The Julie cooking sections are great too, because Julie is not always sure what she is doing and she is not as naturally fearless and Julia, but that makes it more connected to us, because I am not sure we would be as fearless when it comes to live lobsters either. There are great messages to be found within the movie about chasing your dreams even if someone says you shouldn't and to be fearless in your life and that the loving support from family can get you through anything, all of which are very evident, but not shoved in your face.

I am not sure what I was really expecting out this movie, but I think I got it. It was pretty funny and touching and at times, utterly charming. However, there was something missing, or something I was looking for and could not find. I cannot put my finger on it, but I left the movie unfulfilled in some way. I think maybe Nora Ephron's script just left something to be desired in the dialog department, or maybe there was more that could have been done about a New Yorker searching for meaning in a world that was just brutally changed for all of them in some way, although that might have been too much of a downer for such a light and fluffy movie. Meryl Streep is probably going to get another Oscar nomination for her wonderfully charming performance, but I think the movie just never raises itself to her level.

Final Grade: B-