JIM reviews film "JULIE & JULIA"

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Julie & Julia

MY Rating:

8 of 10 stars (for the 123-minute film, as seen on DVD).

What’s Cooking is Fine ACTING!

Julia Childs was an icon both as a cook and a TV personality. Utilizing true stories from at least two books, this film has wisely hired Meryl Streep to “channel” Julia as she & her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) arrive in France (at Rouen) after the end of World War II, & she develops an intense love of the French style of cooking…

… In between scenes with Julia, we’re introduced to Julie Powell (the ever-spunky Amy Adams). She lives with her husband Eric (Chris Messina) in a small apartment in Queens, New York, & decides to write a BLOG about her attempts to use Julia’s “The Art Of French Cooking” book to prepare the RECIPES in it…

… Amy speaks of how impressed she was with Julia, & how she’s unsure if she could actually succeed at what she will try to accomplish… The story shifts back & forth between the two main characters, & you see how Julia came to LEARN cooking: how she delights in the wonderful taste of the food in France, how she was initially made fun of by other students as she goes to a cooking SCHOOL in the Paris area, & the difficulty she has in learning how to do things properly… But, in time, the men at the school start to respect her because of how “fearless” she was…

… The film shows the life-loving & even sexual side of Meryl’s relationship with her hubby, & how she has problems in trying to write her BOOK about French cooking— the difficulty of translating metric measures into American ones, the problems that arose from having the many recipes be so detailed & long that it was hard to find a PUBLISHER for the book, etc… But, Stanley is always supportive of her, lovingly commenting at one point, “You are the butter to my bread!”…
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… At one point, Amy claims life has been hard for her because she has A.D.D.: “That’s why I’m so bad at housework…” To her surprise, she finds herself feeling GOOD as she cooks, & it helps her get away from trying to handle office or other “everyday” type of activities… Amy is so new to food preparation, it turns out she’d never even eaten an EGG before she starts her cooking & blogging efforts… Bit by bit, she replicates more than 100 recipes…

… As the stories weave their gastronomic way thru our sensibilities, we periodically meet friends of Julia & Julie (many of whom are invited to join in sampling the concocted cuisine), + people involved in considering publishing their various books: Madame Brassart (Joan Juliet Buck), Simone Beck (Linda Emond), Louisette Bertholle (Helen Carey), Sarah (Mary Lynn Rajskub), Dorothy McWilliams (Jane Lynch), Ernestine (Crystal Noelle), and others…

… At one point, Julia becomes so famous, she’s satirized by Dan Akroyd in a skit on “Saturday Night Live”… Getting a book published isn’t easy at that time in the world of cooking: Meryl relates at one point how a woman she knows PAID a publisher to put out her book, but she ended up SWINDLED by the guy…

… Meanwhile, Amy is having her tribulations: at one point, she admits that, on a 10-point scale of narcissism, she’s probably a 9.3… Meryl has to contend with upsets beyond just the world of cooking and writing, since her husband is at one point investigated by the government when he tries to apply for a new position…

… Amy’s husband has to deal with her frequent highs and lows as she attempts recipes and works to write her blog. There are times she wants to give up, & is told, “It’d be good to FINISH something for once in your life!”…

… In time, Meryl comes up with the idea to possibly publish her increasingly-long cookbook in a SERIES of like 8 volumes (since it’s way too big for a single one)…

… Meanwhile, Amy’s blog is becoming increasingly FAMOUS, to the point that she’s having articles written about her & she’s getting requests for INTERVIEWS on television… Some guy claims to her that now 90-year-old Julia (Meryl) was supposedly “kind of a PILL” when she learned of Julie’s blog about replicating her recipes. That upsets Julie (Amy), since Julia is a real HERO to her…

… Finally, (with the time & location flipping a bit back & forth), Meryl is thrilled to learn that KNOPF had finally agreed to PUBLISH her huge cookbook… At one point, Amy can be heard stating that “Julia TAUGHT me to cook” by what she created in her cookbook (& life story)…

… Near the end of the film, Amy finally FINISHES duplicating the last of the recipe’s in Meryl’s cookbook, with a hearty “BON APPETIT!”…

… Just before the credits roll, a postscript relates how the real Julia Childs died in 2004 at age 91… And it reveals that her book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” was now in its 49th printing…

… You also learn that Julie Powell’s book about her following Julia’s recipes & blogging about her efforts came out in 2005. It further tells how Julie is now a writer, & still lives in Queens (tho in a different home now)…

… The DVD has a some enjoyable SPECIAL FEATURES on it: one tells how the movie was MADE (including how they used some real artifacts from the Childs family), and how — because of numerous re-takes in many scenes of food consumption — Meryl ended up gaining about “15 pounds”, which it took her “a year” to lose… There’s also a fascinating COMMENTARY from director Ephron about her movie…

… If you watch this film, you’ll see why Meryl just WON a Golden Globe for her role in this as “Best Performance By An Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy”… (However, since it’s a comedy, I feel it’s UNlikely to be duplicated by garnering an Oscar to her, since the Academy tends to prefer more ‘SERIOUS” efforts)…