Julie and Julia is superb. Indeed, the more it marinates in one's brain, the better I think it gets. Deftly balancing two completely separate stories, Julie and Julia finds the shared highs and lows of writing as a process, of food and cooking, and life in general, specifically, lives of women.
The sense of accomplishment is nothing short of inspiring. Of course there is Meryl Streep doing the uncanniest channeling of Julia Child ever, but there is much, much more.
Julie and Julia is actually the adaptation of the story of Julie Powell, a worker at the Lower Manhattan Dvelopment Corporation who cooks to escape the dreariness and sadness (she works in the LMDC support center in the months after 9/11), who decides to start a blog built around the idea of cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering The Art of French Cooking.
Over the course of film, we see not only Julie's journey through the cookbook... but Julia's in creating it.
It's easy to get lost in the Julia Child biopic that's going on here; Streep is radiant, with one of the real cappers for her career. But there's also Stanley Tucci as Julia's supportive husband Paul, and a number of great character actresses in supporting roles. There's also postwar Paris, and the joys of watching Julia's transformation into The French Chef role that defined her after the cookbook was published.
But what caught me short was the power of Julie Powell's journey. Director Nora Ephron has the right instinct for this material (including the deft, respectful way to reflect the recovery of New York in the aftermath of 9/11), and she imbues the modern day story with great feeling and style. In showing such respect for writers, and telling what I think may be the first really heroic tale of blogging on film, Ephron rescues and confers dignity on the blogger's work, and brings blogging into the mainstream of writing.
After years of auditioning for the kind of leading lady stardom she seems capable of, Amy Adams has found the right role for her talents. Shedding her tentative qualities and that "slightly smaller than the film" quality she'd been carrying, Adams plays Powell as determined, yet vulnerable, capable of greatness, but only beginning to find her voice. Conveying the frustrations of both cooking and writing, Adams manages to show the work involved... but also the payoffs in pursuing the things you love. And Powell's journey with her husband (a supportive and generous Chris Messina) as part of the story, adds the key personal dimension of seeing your partner through the hard parts for the possibility of what can happen as a result.
What is ultimately moving about Julie and Julia is the very universality Ephron finds in bringing both these women's journeys together. There's a timelessness to the struggles that each endures, so similarly, and yet so individually. Julia Child was an amazing woman, with the strength and sense of purpose required to not only change her own life, but to have such an enormous cultural impact. What she conveyed about cooking - that it was hard, but worth it, and with a great payoff at the finish - is really the whole metaphor about taking risks in life, and not being afraid to fall down and get back up. Julie and Julia finds the power and unexpected grace in just such an approach, celebrates it, then puts it on the table and lets us savor it. Delicious. Just delicious.
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.