Friday, August
7, 2009
MOVIE REVIEW
Julie & Julia
Wanted: An Inspiration. Found: A Love Affair
With Food.
Meryl Streep hits the funny stratosphere as
American cooking icon Julia Child in Nora Ephron's "Julie & Julia", which opened
today in the U.S. and Canada. The film also stars Amy Adams as Julie
Powell. (Photo: Sony Pictures)
By
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Friday, August 7, 2009
A sexy, saucy romantic comedy cooked with all the ingredients of love.
"Julie & Julia" is a delicious dish of fun, food and frolic.
And one could stop right there in describing Nora Ephron's latest film, an
entertaining spectacle thanks largely to Meryl Streep, who portrays cooking icon
Julia Child. The stories of Ms. Child and Julie Powell, a frustrated and
dispirited being living in Long Island City in Queens, N.Y. in 2002 are also a
good reason for a totally immersive experience in this, Ms. Ephron's finest
film. Parallel story tracts uneasily but steadily link these two beings together, as 1940s and
50s France seems never far away from this new century's New York City post
9-11-01.
And food is never far away from either. Julie Powell (Amy Adams) lives
with her husband (Chris Messina) on top of a pizzeria as Julie struggles to make
something of her increasingly drab life. Cooking will be the way, she
decides, thanks to Ms. Child's landmark tome Mastering The Art of French
Cooking. Julie embarks on an ambitious undertaking: 524 recipes from
the book will be cooked in 365 days, and she starts an online blog to keep
herself honest. For Julia Child, it's the food of love and the boning of
many a duck that keeps her busy, and Ms. Streep portrays her as a bawdy, joyful
and amorous sort, with the supplicant affectations that Ms. Child would surely
have loved (she passed away in 2002). Ms. Adams plays Ms. Powell with
friskiness, punch and gusto, echoing the frustration and hardship of setting what surely
appears an unattainable goal. Ms. Adams, who starred with Ms. Streep in
last year's multi-Oscar-nominated film
"Doubt", no doubt has a knack for being in decent films,
two of them this
year:
"Sunshine Cleaning", and now this very good
effort, which owes a little to
"Sex And The City" in some ways, with or without the food of love.
Stanley Tucci, Streep's co-star in
"The
Devil Wears Prada" plays Paul Child, Julia's husband, and does particularly
well in the role. Their chemistry is so very good as are the remainder of the
impressive cast: stage thespian Linda Emond is an unsung heroine in her role,
displaying her consistently outstanding talents, and Jane Lynch has a small but
sweet role as Julia's sister. Most of all, "Julie & Julia", marred ever so
slightly by a Saturday Night Live parody that is bloody to an
uncomfortable extreme, is a consistently engaging work. Food, an obvious
character given the subject matter, is a constant theme in "Julie & Julia",
reigniting stagnating relationships, bolstering confidence and self-satisfying
its ingesting parties wherever possible.
Based on Ms. Powell's book Julie & Julia and Ms. Child's book My Life
In France, with Alex Prud'homme, Ms. Ephron's screenplay cleverly melds what
could have easily have been an awkward continuum between these two women, who never met.
The ultimate point is that inspiration and a measure of satisfaction comes to all of us, whether
we've never
cooked a meal before or are constantly seeking perfection and a certain crème de la
crème -- which Ms. Child achieved and her genius onscreen inhabitant here continues to.
Ms. Streep's phenomenal mastery of acting and affecting only gets better, even
after all these years.
"Julie & Julia" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association Of America for
brief strong language and some sensuality. The film's running time is two
hours and three minutes.
Copyright 2009. Omar P.L. Moore. The Popcorn Reel.
PopcornReel.com. All Rights Reserved.