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“Julie and Julia”: A tale of two cooks
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Grade B- /Rated “PG-13”
“Julie and Julia” is writer/director Nora Ephron's latest release and it hews to the one constant theme of her career; making movies about women's lives and relationships. Movies such as, “Heartburn” (1986), the classic “When Harry met Sally” (1989), “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993) and “You got Mail” (1998) are some of her past productions. This story about two cooks a world and decades apart is tailor made for Ephron and she has created a well crafted and satisfying diversion with Julie and Julia.
Julie and Julia tells the true story of Julie Powell, played by Amy Adams, an attractive but not striking, agreeable young woman working in an unsatisfying job at an office chartered to assist survivors of the 9-11 attacks in New York City in 2002. Julie is pushing 30 and is having something of a pre-midlife crisis. She has a small circle of friends that are more like competitors and they constantly, but subtly, remind her that she doesn't measure up. Feeling despondent she confides in her authentic friend Sarah, played by Mary Lynn Rajskub (who is also featured in “Sunshine Cleaning” released earlier this year), that she feels like a failure because she quit pursuing her one true love writing after she was unable to finish a novel she was working on. Later that night while discussing her plight with her husband Eric, played by Chris Messina, he half-jokingly suggests that she should start a blog about cooking, which is a hobby that shes very good at. Julie initially dismisses this but then considers it and an idea occurs to her; she will start a blog based on cooking every single recipe in the classic “Mastering the art of French Cooking” by her idol Julia Child. There are over 500 recipes in the book and Julie gives herself the deadline of a year to cook them all, because she is afraid that without such a deadline that she will fail to complete the project.
Running parallel to Julie's story is that of Julia Child, played by the imposing Meryl Streep. Her story starts with her and her husband Paul's, played by Stanley Tucci, arrival in Paris France in the early 1950's; he has been given an ambassadorship. Julia immediately falls in love with Paris even with the inhabitants who, as we know, are renown for their ill temperament with foreigners, especially Americans. But Julia with her towering physique and unshakable good humor convinces herself that the French adore her. She's right, the force of her presence and personality wins over the French and she feels that in moving to Paris she has finally come home. Like Julie, Julia too begins to have a crisis of purpose. Her husband Paul has his career but although she is enamored with Paris she feels that she has no purpose. He tries her hand at several things but they all leave her feeling unfulfilled. Then Paul suggests that she enroll at the famed Cordon Bleu cooking school because she loves to cook and eat. Julia agrees and enrolls at the school and without planning to becomes a trailblazer, because at this time there were no women students at the school. The men students take an immediate dislike to her because she's invading their realm. Julia, with her indefatigable spirit practices her skills at home until she is regularly besting the men in the kitchen and earns their respect.
While Julia's story is unfolding Julie's project to cook every recipe from Julia's book is continuing. Doing the project gives Julie a sense of purpose she lacked before, which she likes even though it seems that no one is actually following her blog at “Salon.com”. Her mother consuls her against doing it. She doesn't even know what this “blog” thing is, we must remember that in 2002 blogging was just emerging, and she's afraid that this will be yet another project that Julie will quit and end up disappointing herself. Despite the lack of support she is getting, aside from husband Eric, she soldiers on cooking the recipes and learning all she can about Julia Child, even reading published letters of Child and her husband that they wrote to their friends and relatives. Julie feels that by doing this she is communing with Julia Child in some way. Her ambition is to meet Child one day with the expectation that her idol will be suitably impressed with her year-long tribute to her art.
On Julia's side of the story, she has mastered the art of French cooking but not the test for the diploma. She tries and fails it twice mainly because the headmistress of the Cordon Bleu despises her; she's the on Frenchman that Julia is unable to charm. But two of her friends convince her to forgo the exam and begin teaching French cooking to Americans in Paris for pay at one of their apartments. She balks at first but changes her mind and they go into business together. Her friends having been working on a book of French cooking intended for American housewives, but it going nowhere. After some years working together teaching cooking classes they resolve to ask Julia to be a collaborator on the book. She eagerly accepts and thus begins what will be a long 8 year odyssey to complete what would become the source material for Julie's 21st century internet project.
Eventually, both Julie and Julia accomplish their goals, become noted cooks, and get publishing deals and other successes. Cooking has been a means of salvation for both of these very different women, one who doesn't know the other exists and the other longing for the honor of meeting the other. Two women in two different places at two different times but with the common interest of the art of cooking.
Balancing these two stories must have been daunting but Ephron manages it with seeming ease. Each of the characters receives about the same amount of time to let their stories play out. Many critics have denigrated Amy Adams' performance in comparison with Streep's; they feel that Adams is completely overshadowed in the movie by her. However, I think that this has been vastly overstated. Adams is absolutely fine as Julie. She's an engaging performer who wins over the audience with her deceptively average looks, her sparkling personality and her expressive saucer-like eyes. But it's no insult to her to note that she's not Meryl Streep, who but Meryl Streep is? Streep is one of the top five or six actors working in movies today. The woman is the quintessential chameleon, she becomes whoever she is portraying. I would argue that in the case of Julia Child she started with a distinct advantage over Adams because she is playing a familiar figure with a distinctive personality and especially voice. Child's voice is another Streep triumph in her repertoire of voices. She really gets the essence of Child's speaking style without sounding like she's imitating her. It's a marvelous job of interpretation for a performer with a career of them. Adams on the other hand is portraying someone unknown to the public and thus we have no frame of reference to compare her Julie Powell to Streep's Julia Child. I am not arguing that Adams could best Streep if the situation was reversed. The point is that even without such a plum role as Julia Child anyone would be hard pressed to match her so it's no wonder that Adams can't when Streep has such a role.
“Julie and Julia” is a delightful, charming and wholly unassuming movie featuring fine performances by a young and older actress and celebrating a true genus of cooking, Julia Child who paved the way for today's celebrity cooks that we enjoy so much.
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