Julie & Julia (2009)

Despite being an incredibly and unapologetically picky eater since childhood, I do love movies about food. Julie & Julia certainly has a lot of foodgasm moments, and I suddenly feel like cooking all the time. Adapted from two autobiographical works, My Life in France by Julia Child and The Julie/Julia Project by Julie Powell, the film spends half its time on Julia Child's (Meryl Streep) first cooking lessons and subsequent writing partnership, and the other half on Julie Powell's (Amy Adams) blog project: cooking every recipe in Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. Both women are at first shown at a point of stagnancy in their lives, both ready and able to make a dramatic change.

Julia loves postwar Paris and loves her diplomat husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) even more. Seeking something to occupy her time, she enrolls in cooking school due to her great passion for food, and excels against all expectations. Soon she teams up with two female French cooks to teach classes to Americans and work on a comprehensive French cookbook for "servantless American cooks". The book is a grueling work and takes several years to complete, besides encountering publishing obstacles.

Decades later, Julie is loathing her depressing office job working for an agency dealing with the effects of 9/11. She finds solace in cooking and her genial husband Eric (Chris Messina). After a reporter friend writes about Julie's seemingly dead-end at 30 existence, he convinces her to start a blog about her experience cooking Julia Child, her idol. She had initially wanted to be a writer but never finished her novel, and hopes now to rejuvenate her life and self-confidence. As the blog becomes quite popular, she becomes more involved in the project and in her effect on these faceless readers, ostracizing her "sainted" husband and friends.

Many reviews I've read focus on the Julia Child portion of the film, citing Meryl Streep's portrayal as flawless and her tale more interesting. She certainly is likable and exuberant, but I wasn't particularly engrossed by that story. I didn't really know who Child was before this, to be honest, and I feel like the part of her life that's the focus here would be more interesting to someone who knew all about what she was to become. I just knew she had a cooking show and was really tall. The Julie Powell segments resonated a bit more with me for whatever reason, and it seemed a nice change for Adams to get away from the bubblyness she's often meant to exude (though I do think she made Powell sweeter than she's supposed to be).

The story is light and enjoyable, with enough drama to keep things interesting and a nice attention to the marital relationships. And of course, lots of food! I don't even like French food but I wanted to eat everything they put on screen, which I guess means someone's doing their job correctly. Julie & Julia is a character study full of strong women and deliciousness, as well as an informative look at two different perspectives on cooking. It's slow at times and overdoes it with some of the tearjerker moments, but overall is good for people like me (aka those who dig movies about food, ladies, France, history, the internet, and/or Amy Adams).

4/5