Thursday, October 15, 2009

It's Alright, I Suppose. Could Use Some Spicing Up.

 Julie & Julia
Directed by Nora Ephron
Two and One Half Stars

I knew very little about Julia Child going into Julie and Julia, and as such wasn't quite sure what to make of Meryl Streep's performance. After seeing the movie I did a little research on Julia Child and from what I read and saw, Streep's performance is spot-on. During the film I wondered if she was hamming up the role of Child, with the strange accent, mannerisms and peculiarities. Having watched some Julie Child on YouTube, it seems that Streep has underplayed Child, if anything.

Nora Ephron's Julie and Julia is an enjoyable enough flick, even if it eventually reveals itself to be a standard mid-year comedy/drama. Just about everything about it is light, inoffensive and not particularly challenging. The music swells, subsides and chirps at the right moments. The dialogue has a patter that only exists in movies like this, and the movie's conflicts are all-too-perfectly timed.

Meryl Streep plays Julia Child circa 1959, as she travels with her diplomant husband Paul (Stanley Tucci). When the couple move to Paris, Julia studies haute cuisine at a school for professional chefs. Eventually Child would write a groundbreaking cookbook called "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", a book that made French cooking accessible to Americans. Not that it really helped. I get the feeling most Americans would rather a Philadelphia Cheese Steak over boeuf bourgignon nine times out of ten.

Amy Adams, always engaging, plays Julie Powell, a mid-level NYC bureaucrat who in 2002 began a blog chronicling her attempt to cook 524 of Child's recipes in 365 days. The blog begins as an outlet for her creativity, but eventually grows into an all-consuming activity that alienates her from her supportive husband (Chris Messina) before being picked up for a book deal and, eventually, turned into a movie. Julie and Julia cuts back and forth between these stories, not-so-subtly reminding us of the parallels of these two women. Both love to cook, love to eat, want to write, have supportive husbands and feel a little out of place in their respective environments. Child was 6'2" and, while not unattractive, had an unusual demeanour. Julie, in 2002, finds herself as a poorly-paid public servant with high-flying friends. In one scene, she has lunch with her friends who tell her all about the success of their professional endeavours while simultaneously texting, calling and e-mailing. It's scenes like this that tip Julie and Julia into standard, unchallenging territory (not, to quote "Seinfeld", that there's anything wrong with that). The film tries its darndest to show us the dichotomy between the women's desires and the reality they find themselves in. Many scenes like this are presented in the most straight-forward, palatable way as possible. Fine if you want pure escapism, but I'm a guy who likes his movies with a little meat on their bones.

Even so, it's interesting that a film like Julie and Julia couldn't exist at any time but this one. Ephron labours on the similarities between Julie and Julia, but the most interesting difference between the women to me was their methods of attack. Julie's is a quintisentially modern one, and is the dream story for an internet writer -- an average person begins a blog which becomes hugely popular before being turned into a best-selling book. Despite that, there's a kinship between her and Julia Child, who had to rely on the analogue methods of writing a book, and persisting and persisting before convincing someone that it is commerically viable. In that way, Julie and Julia is kind of comforting, presenting technology as a helpful, logical progression in humanity's timeline, rather than something to be feared.

Amy Adams makes good work of her character, who could easily have had a simple up-down-down-up arc. As Adams plays her, every facial expression and line has something to say about Julie. She's a great actress being a little reined in by this material. If Julie's character was a tad constrictive for Adams, the character of Julia Child is right up Meryl Streep's alley. Her Julia Child is flamboyant and lovable, cheeky and kind. Streep seems to be in the 'enjoyable' phase of her career. It's nice to see her breaking up roles in intense fare like Doubt with films like this one.

Julie and Julia, while competently made, is not entirely this reviewer's cup of tea. The ending, particularly, overdoses on gooeyness and actually struck me as kind of creepy. Does Julie want to be Julia Child, or does she want to be with her? Hero worship in the movies can only go so far before seeming a little sinister.

Jonathan Fisher
October 15, 2009
Originally Featured in The Film Brief




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