[Movie review: Julie & Julia]
Mick Jagger. Sir Winston Churchill. Hervé “Tattoo” Villechaize (“Da plane, boss. Da plane!”)
These are just a few people I am convinced that Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep could no doubt play with both an uncanny accuracy and a great deal of fun.
She certainly gathers all the right ingredients to capture the singular joie de vivre of iconic author and TV chef Julia Child. Then with a little shake and bake here, some tender loving care there and a liberal dose of buttery delight all over, she serves it all up to perfection. Streep as Julia is an absolute feast — for the eyes, the funny bone and the heart.
Unfortunately Streep’s Julia is not the only thing on this cinematic menu. The movie is, after all, based on two books — Child’s memoir My Life In France and Julie Powell’s 2005 book, Julie And Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. It is an interesting idea to intertwine both books in one movie and if the idea is to use one to contrast with the other, then the idea works — just too well for its own good. After all, whatever contrasts with “delightful” — like “deadly dull” or “borrring” or “pain in the butt” — is not good news for the viewer.
Paul (Stanley Tucci) and Julia (Meryl Streep)
Julia’s adventures in post-war Paris with her husband Paul the American diplomat are as rich and vibrant as Child’s personal outlook on life. At one point she’s openly wondering what to do with herself. Paul simply asks her what she is most good at. “Eating,” is her outrageous but accurate reply.
When the laughter has subsided. it’s not a huge jump from there to taking on the male establishment at Le Cordon Bleu school of cooking where Child’s fiercely competitive nature kicks in — to gales of laughter in the now famous onion-chopping scenes.
This in turn leads to Child collaborating with two other women to write a huge cookbook for American woman on French cooking — which eventually became the legendary Mastering The Art of French Cooking. The story turns to the huge obstacles faced in trying to get such a book published. There’s also a look at the long reach of the gathering political gloom as the McCarthy era begins to unfold back in the U.S.
All this would be great if we didn’t have to keep cutting away to get back to the more modern story of Julie, played by Amy Adams. Julie is portrayed as a rather vapid, self-centred young woman living with her husband Eric in Queens, in a tiny old apartment, above a pizza parlour. Julie is a thoroughly modern woman desperate to finally, for once in her life, actually see something through to its conclusion. The project becomes cooking all of the recipes in Mastering The Art of French Cooking in one year, and blogging about her efforts. Her eventual celebrity status has publishers falling all over themselves to publish her story as a book, and literary agents dying to be her guide to sudden fame and fortune, which certainly contrasts with Child’s experiences decades earlier.
But the contrast that really divides the two sides of the movie is the contrast between “lovable” and “not even likable.” Streep’s Julia is so lovable, I found myself constantly wanting to get back to her story. Adams’ Julie is so unpleasant, in an odd, deliberate way, that I began to resent her and her story as an unfortunate intrusion. What really threw me was how Adams, who exuded such natural charm as the princess-out-of-water in Enchanted, could play someone, in my mind at least, so utterly charmless. (I hated her character, though my wife Mariette thought she wasn’t that bad.)
On its own, I think Julie And Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously would have made for a rather tepid and frustrating romantic comedy. There are some funny bits, usually involving dropped pans and spilt food. And some tender bits, involving the husband feeling as if he’s losing his wife to her strange ambitions and obsessive cooking. But served as it is here, it would be a rather depressing tale over all.
As a full-length feature, Julia’s story might have proved a little thin, or short, but as the scenes we do get illustrate, it still would have been glorious fun.
I can’t blame screenwriter/director Nora Ephron for combining the two stories. It must have seemed a natural fit, with one story underlining the other. And I am well aware of the artistic adage that without dark there is no light. But I don’t need a burnt hamburger next to my filet mignon to remind me how super the filet has turned out.
A couple of special mentions: Mary Lynn Rajskub, better known as the socially awkward Chloe on the TV series 24, is quite funny as Julie’s friend Sarah. Stanley Tucci is excellent as Julia’s husband Paul. One of the more delightful aspects of that side of the movie is the wonderful, loving, even sensual relationship between Paul and Julia. After all, tall, big-boned, ungainly, and squeaky-voiced Julia is hardly anyone’s candidate for a sexual fantasy. Yet Streep makes her so real, so well rounded, so natural, that she is touchingly sensual, as well as funny and charming. And Tucci completes the picture, making them highly believable as a loving, sexually active couple.
All this and more make Paul and Julia the people you want to hang out with in this movie — and perhaps even in real life if they hadn’t been from another time period. As for Julie and her husband Eric, well let’s just say I’d rather go downstairs for pizza than eat at their apartment.
Do note, however, that no matter how dreary I found the Julie half of the film, it is still definitely worth enduring for every glorious moment we spend with Julia in her world. It’s just a bit like having to eat some despised vegetable to get to enjoy one’s rack of lamb. The latter certainly removes any bad taste from the former.
So if you are the least bit intrigued, or inclined, do not miss Streep and company in Julie & Julia. They’re a real treat. Bon appetit!
I was going to try and get out to see this! Nice review, btw. 🙂
Ok, I saw the movie the other night, keeping in mind your review and I have to say that I really liked the portrayal of Julie. Her story illustrated how, during her year of cooking under the virtual tutelage of Julia Child, she found her way, grew in many ways and experienced a deepening of her relationship with her husband, all the while keeping Julia on a pedestal, when at last Julia fell from grace. This I think was the moment in the film when Julie ultimately finds her way.
Well I wasn’t sure if I was going to comment on Comments — I seem to have enough trouble getting around to just posting here — but your view seemed in such contrast — diametrically opposed? — that I thought I would reply after all.
First, I’m very happy to see another opinion expressed here. I mean the original was just my view and more views offer more choices, which can be the spice of life.
That you’re dead wrong in your view doesn’t matter. LOL JUST KIDDING! About the “dead wrong” part, at least.
Let’s just say misguided. Still JUST KIDDING! Sorry, blame this lack of seriousness on some new medication I’m taking.
Bottom line, and what I’m really trying to say, is that while I obviously don’t share your opinion, I AM glad that you got that from that half of the movie and enjoyed that part of the film.
Honestly, I did worry a bit that I was overreacting and being too negative, though I still feel that to me — and NOT necessarily to others — she was shallow to begin with and shallow at the end as well. (And I’m not sure what you mean by Julia’s fall from grace.)
Anyway, I’m probably botching things here in trying to welcome your opinion — and noting that I find it interesting — without going back on my own.
I do thank you for your opinion and would love to hear (read?) other’s, if possible.
Duh! Maybe it wasn’t the new medication aftger all. I realized later that I was probably still on a bit of a Sugar high. M and I had just finished watching some of Canadian comedian Sugar Sammy’s comedy special, a live performance before a hometown Montreal crowd. A bit like Russell Peters, and almost as funny, Sam is a Canadian of east Indian descent who has a lot of fun with ethnic stereotypes, including his own background. He’s also great interacting with audience members and pretending (I hope) to be a male chauvinist pig. Most of all, he’s a BIG kidder. So I think I was still in that kidder mood, where one says something outrageous, to shock(?) and surprise, followed by the just-kidding confession. Which is odd, because you know I would NEVER do that as part of my wicked sense of humour. (wg) Which makes sense for someone who was a virgin until he was 30. (LOL) By the way, Sam mentions his Indian last name but I forget what it is, at the moment. But he did riff on getting in trouble with his mom. (In appropriate accent) “First you change to Sam. That we could live with. Then you put (*food item) in front of it. And not even something Indian. Sugar?! You could have used paprika (**and others). And you know we Indian people are susceptible to diabetes. You are killing us slowly with all those posters.” ( * can’t remember the actual term he used, ** can’t remember the other spices used in Indian cooking that are mentioned in outrage.) Probably loses a lot when I can’t even remember key words of the routine. Anyway, I recommend the special, called Sugar Sammy. He may be even funnier than me. LOL
Sorry, I didn’t realize you’d replied to my comment – I don’t get notifications! I actually came here looking for the watermelon writeup.
What I meant by Julia’s fall from grace is that she because less of a god in Julie’s eyes and more human.
I also felt that the Julia part of the story was delightful and while the Julie part can hardly be described as delightful, it was, to me, insightful.
Of course that is MY opinion and as you say, there will be differing opinions – thank goodness for that! It makes the world much more interesting.
Never heard of Sugar Sammy, but I love Russell Peters (even saw him live at the Rogers Centre (which I still tend to call Skydome).
No problem.
Sugar Sammy currently available on Rogers HBO Canada and HBO Canada2 On Demand, but if I remember correctly, you have a different cable service — Cogeco or something like that, I think? — so I don’t know how that translates. But as I say, even though Sam is more naughty than Russell (more semi-crude, even if only kidding), I do recommend this special if you should see it pop up some time on your listings.
As for notification, I’ve been meaning to get Ty to explain to me how people can turn on that function that allows them to be notified when this blog us updated. He did post the following as a Comment on my Welcome post:
I will send him a request tonight for an explanation, in layman’s terms, of how people can subscribe to my RSS.
Ok, I think I just subscibed to it, by clicking on the little RSS logo on the menu bar of my IE window. But I’m not sure it will notify me of new comments since they are probably designed more for the writer of the blog than readers. But we’ll see how it works.
And yes, it’s Cogeco and we don’t subscribe to HBO so I might not get the special. But I’ll check with the resident techie to see if he has a copy somewhere that he can feed through the Xbox to our TV upstairs.
So did it work? Tyler sent me some instructions — recommending Google Reader if one didn’t have an RSS reader — but I found the directions a bit cryptic (as usual) so haven’t posted them. Since I already have a Google account, I went and activated Google Reader and I think I subscribed correctly. Just gonna check. LOL p.s. don’t use IE. Have used Foxfire for quite a while now and rather like it.
Well, no e-mail notification, which is really what I wanted. Have to go to my Google Reader page — which I’ve now bookmarked on my Bookmark Toolbar — and even there it doesn’t show Comments or how to get to see them. (sigh) So, for me, auto-notification remains a work in progress. (Now off to look at my e-mail (Thunderbird) to see if there’s a way to subscribe there.
somehow couldn’t quite come up with the correct (according to Firefox) URL to complete the subscription. Meanwhile, got kinda distracted with more add-ons for Firefox. At the moment, creating tabs cause this ColourfulTabs add-on is cool. LOL Think I’d better go rest now. (g)
I think I subscribed so we’ll see. Thing is I think you only see when there is a new post, not comments on an existing post (at least for a visitor to the blog).
On IE, the little RSS logo in the menu bar goes from grey to orange when a new post is available on any of your subscriptions. Which reminds me, I must do this week’s blog!
I subscribed through Live Bookmarks and then downloaded and installed an Add-On to my Firefox browser called RSS Ticker, which I can enable or disable as I choose. Right now it’s enabled, so if there is any update to any blogs I subscribe to via Live Bookmarks, the title of the new item will scroll across the bottom of my screen. I can Left Click on the title(s) to check out the item(s). I can also Right Click to call up a menu that lets me Open All In Tabs, Refresh Feeds, Mark All As Read and go to Options where I can do all kinds of things, including denoting where I want the ticker bar to appear (I chose below Status Bar at the bottom.) What’s also neat in Options, I just discovered, is that I can even add other categories to the pop-up menu, context actions like Manage Feeds and Disable Ticker and other things. It too seems to only note blog entries and not comments. It’s a start. Still gonna watch for how to get auto-notification via e-mail. Actually found out how to set up News&Blogs in Thunderbird, which lists just above Local Folders which contains the key sub-folders like Inbox, Unsent, Drafts, Sent, Junk, Deleted and any sub-folders I create for archiving e-mail. Unfortunately when I get to the RSS Subscriptions box and click on the Add button, and type in something in the Feed URL field — like http://bill.provick.ca (home of Surfacing) — a message pops up telling me that’s not a valid URL feed. So I’m a little stuck there and will have to check that out further.
And now I’m thinking I should put some of this in the blog, in case anyone has some answers, that others, in addition to me, might have some real use for.
I’ll keep working at it.
(But I’ve gotta stop writing these long comments. Using up all my blogging energy.) LOL (mostly kidding) (g)
The comments notification is at the bottom of the page.
Thanks Ty. I just noticed that last night. For others, at the very bottom of the page there are two links for subscribing to notifications of updates to the blog — Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS). If you use the first, you can be informed when a new Entry (item) is posted here by yours truly. If you use the second, you can be informed when any new Comments are posted here, by anyone. Hope this helps. (And obviously Tyler didn’t inherit his dad’s wordiness.) (grin)