Julie and Julia (2009)
Review of Julie and Julia (2009) directed by Nora Ephron
I’m a big food journalism and food writing fan, so when I saw this movie was made about the legendary Julia Child, I knew I had to eventually watch this movie. I’m not into French food, but I do love a good movie about writers and creatives that I admire throughout history. And food history tends to be my forte and a point of research.
Enough about me! Meryl Streep and Amy Adams star in this film, which is ironically right after I watched Amy Adams in Catch Me If You Can (2002), which was her first major role in Hollywood. While this film isn’t exactly a megahit quality film or something that you’d find nominated at the Oscars or film festival circuits, but it’s definitely a heartwarming piece that provides some quality entertainment.
Let’s dive straight into this review.
Content
The movie is split into two narratives: one, starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child, in France during the 1950s. It is during this era that Julia Child is learning how to cook for the first time, and we get some sweet glimpses of her relationship with her husband and the French people she’s surrounded by. The second narrator is Julie Powell, who, during the early 2000s, lives in a tiny Queens apartment with her husband Eric, a writer.
Miserable at her job where she has to work a call center for 9/11 victims and their families, Julie chooses to buy a copy of Julia Child’s French cookbook and cook a recipe from it every single day for a year. She then starts a blog chronicling this journey, where she describes cooking all of these recipes in New York City—specifically in a tiny New York City apartment. On the flipside, we see how Julia Child is trying to get her cookbook about French food published for the world to see, but is struggling to learn how to cook and gain the literary support that she needs.
This a comedic, lighthearted take on real people. Julia Child did exist, as well as Julia Powell. Powell actually did this experiment on her blog, and that led to a cookbook deal. The real Julia Child apparently thought that Powell’s blog wasn’t the greatest, as all of the recipes shouldn’t be meant to be cooked within a year presumably.
All in all, this is a solid film if you’re into food or food writing. I did find myself annoyed with both characters at time though, because Child and Streep’s interpretation of her kind of grated my nerves at some point with her attitude, while Julie was just so obsessed with Child to the point where it was kind of weird?
Overall Thoughts
Like I mentioned, it’s a solid pick if you’re really bored on a Wednesday night like me. I found the content to be quite relatable on both ends of the NYC and French sides, as both characters tend to have striking qualities that are quite universal to us out there in the world. It is a bit formulaic, as I tend to notice with pieces that are more comedic and early 2000s. Literally every romcom has the same copy/paste formula, I swear. This is a bit more unique with the cooking aspect, but it fails to distinguish itself outside of that.
