I recently went to see this movie and I really enjoyed. It isn't one that will appeal to everyone though.
The movie is a bit unique in that is about two real women who aren't related, aren't friends, and don't even know each other. The periods of the lives for the women covered are 40 to 50 years apart. The one part of the movie covers several years, while the other one covers a year.
Julie Powell has a job she hate and just moved into an apartment with her husband Eric that she doesn't like. She has friends that have very successful careers and she is feeling like her life is going nowhere. Julie gets the idea to cook every recipe in Julia Child's cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year and write a blog about what happens. She struggles with some of the dishes and her marriage does face strain.
Julia Child moves to Paris when her husband Paul is stationed there for his job. Julia quickly starts to love her new home and the wonderful food. She eventually decides to take cooking lessons at Le Cordon Bleu. She does very well and becomes a good cook even though the woman running the school doesn't care for her. Julia meets and becomes friends with two women, Simone and Louisette, who are writing a French cookbook for Americans. The two women end up asking Julia to help with the cookbook. Julia fully embraces the project and devotes several years to the project, even as she and Paul are forced to move around Europe because of his job.
The movie spends time with both women, jumping back and forth between the two stories. I did enjoy the entire movie overall, though I enjoyed Julia's parts more. She is just more interesting to me and the things going on with her were more substantial. I did think it seemed like whim on Julie's part to start her project. It was almost like she was hoping to get attention by doing it, especially with how she decided to start the project after she found out one of her more successful friends had started a blog. Julia discovered joy in her cooking and writing the cookbook...Julie just seemed to be doing it for something to do and didn't seem to get any joy out of it.
Cooking and food play an important part in what is happening in the movie obviously. Julia is shown during some of her cooking school lessons, learning things like how to chop onions or later creating her own recipes. Julie's attempts at cooking didn't go as well several times, though she did manage to create good food. Most of the dishes shown looked really good and I'm actually thinking of getting the cookbook to try some of them. However, a few things didn't look as good. The aspic sounded nasty and looked even worse, though perhaps part of that is because Julie's version of the dish didn't set up right. I read a bit about the dish after seeing the movie, and I can't imagine wanting to eat any version of it. It just sound yucky to me.
The movie does have a good amount of humor throughout it, provided by both Julie and Julia. Some of the humor is a bit silly, especially connected to Julie. Much of the humor comes from some of her kitchen mishaps. There is a good blend of humor with the more serious moments.
Amy Adams and Meryl Streep both are very good in their parts. I left the movie wanting to learn more about Julia and I've already picked up her autobiography, My Life in France, and started reading it. The movie is based on that book along with Powell's book that was in turn based on her blog from her year of cooking. I also got that book.
I really enjoyed the movie and will be surprised if Streep doesn't get several award nominations. She is wonderful as Julia.
I did get a review posted on Epinions.
Julie & Julia
