Culinary and self-discovery at the heart of ‘Julie
&
amp; Julia’
This weekend I went to see a movie my dad has been waiting for
months to see. For the last few weeks he’s been asking when it was
going to open, and last Friday on opening day he asked again if we
were going to see it. No the movie wasn’t the action-packed
”
G.I. Joe.
”
It was
”
Julie
&
amp; Julia.
”
Culinary and self-discovery at the heart of ‘Julie & Julia’
This weekend I went to see a movie my dad has been waiting for months to see. For the last few weeks he’s been asking when it was going to open, and last Friday on opening day he asked again if we were going to see it. No the movie wasn’t the action-packed “G.I. Joe.” It was “Julie & Julia.”
I didn’t quite understand what it was about the movie that made my dad want to see it, as on the surface it looked very much like a chick flick. But on the way to the theater, I asked him. He said, “I don’t know. I used to watch Julia Child on TV.”
And there in lies the attraction of the movie for multiple generations. In the theater on opening weekend, there were plenty of people from my dad’s generation who grew up watching Julia Child’s “The French Chef.” Her show was one of the precursors to the modern-day Food Network so in a way she was that generation’s Rachael Ray or Bobby Flay. But there were also plenty of people my age and younger – the 20-and-30 somethings who can relate to Julie Powell’s feeling of being lost.
Writer and director Nora Ephron does an extraordinary job weaving together one story based on two true stories – Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme’s “My Life in France,” based on Child’s years living in France with husband Paul and Julie Powell’s “Julie & Julia,” based on her real-life challenge to herself to cook all 524 recipes in Child’s cookbook “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in one year.
The movement back and forth between the two worlds is seamless, largely due to the high number of cooking scenes in the movie, which allow the director an easy way to transition between the France of the 1950s and Queens, New York of 2002. And the scenes of cooking, of course, will leave most viewers hungry for some gourmet food. In fact, I can’t wait to try chicken in a mushroom sherry cream sauce in the coming weeks.
More than that it is the acting that carries the movie. The characters, perhaps because they are based on real people, come across as real people with all the complications that come with being human. Julie (Amy Adams) is nearly 30 when she and her husband Eric (Chris Messina) move to Queens to a 900-square foot apartment near his office at an archeology magazine. Julie works in a call center for an insurance company where she has to field calls all day from victims of 9/11 and their families. I’ve never been to New York, but the scenes of Julie walking to work passed the rubble and the memorials is understated and heart wrenching at the same time.
Julie’s friends are all highly successful, whether it’s in the world of real estate or as writers. She herself attempted to write a novel and gave up halfway in when no one wanted to publish it. Set in 2002, just when the world of blogs is taking off, her husband suggests she start one herself. Soon she undertakes the self-imposed challenge of recreating all of the recipes in Child’s first cookbook within a year.
In between all the pieces of Julie’s life are snippets of Julia (Meryl Streep) and Paul Child’s (Stanley Tucci) life in Europe. The couple move there when Paul is assigned to the U.S. embassy in Paris and Julia tries to decide what she wants to do – besides eat all the delicious cuisine offered in Paris. After trying her hand at hat making, Julia decides to attend Le Cordon Bleu culinary school. At first the school mistress assigns her to a remedial course with a few other women where they are taught to boil an egg. Julia pushes to be enrolled in the advance course for professionals – even though she is the only woman in the class.
The movie is done in a way that emphasizes the similarities between Julie and Julia. They are both women who were at a loss for what to do with themselves when they discovered cooking. They both set challenges for themselves that sometimes seemed impossible to reach – Julia with her desire to get a dense French cookbook published for American readers at a time when most cookbooks focused on quick-and-easy recipes that used plenty of pre-packaged ingredients; and Julie with her task of completing all of Child’s recipes including something called aspics and deboning a duck.
The central characters are all played by strong actors who never once let the façade slip. Streep entirely immerses herself in the body of Julia, from the dark, curly hair to the odd way of speaking to her somewhat awkward movements due to her 6’2″ height. Adams, too, plays Powell as a vulnerable character who still is able to recognize her flaws. The husbands are secondary, but Messina and Tucci offer plenty of support to their leading ladies.
The movie has a lot to offer for those who grew up watching Child, or those who grew up in the age of the blog. In the very least, viewers might end up with a few dinner ideas.
Melissa Flores can be reached at mf*****@pi**********.com. For more commentary on movies, TV and life in general,
visit melissa-movielines.blogspot.com.
Upcoming Movies Under the Stars:
August 20: Twilight, PG-13
Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is an ordinary teenager when she finds herself in an extraordinary relationship after moving to a sleepy Washington town with her father. She finds herself attracted to the gorgeous Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), but there is something about him that isn’t quite right – he’s a vampire.
August 27: Hairspray, PG
Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) just wants a chance to dance on the Corny Collins show in this musical set in 1950s Baltimore. Her mother Edna (played by a cross-dressing John Travolta) wants her daughter to aim low, while father Wilbur Turnblad (Christopher Walken) encourages her to pursue her dreams of dancing on an integrated show with whites and blacks alike. Starring Zac Efron, Michelle Pfeiffer and Amanda Bynes.
September 3: Mamma Mia!, PG-13
All Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) wants before she gets married is to have her father walk her down the aisle but her mother (Meryl Streep) has always been secretive about her past. When Sophie finds an old diary she decides to invite all three of her mother’s beaus to the island hotel they run in Greece so she can discover which is the real deal in this musical inspired by the music of ABBA. Starring Stellan Skarsgard, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth.
