Two Parts Fluff

Movie Review:
Julie & Julia

PG-13 / 2 hrs., 3 min. / 2009

Until Julie & Julia came along, my only memories or knowledge of Julia Child came from seeing her television show as a young boy. Not that I was into cooking shows at age seven; mostly she was just a “funny old lady” to watch when Sesame Street wasn’t on.

Well, it turns out Mrs. Child was quite instrumental in encouraging American housewives to cook, to really cook and not just whip up Betty Crocker’s powdered mixes; and to enjoy the process at the same time. But apparently dozens of women in the theater already knew this, based on the comments I overheard.

Nora Ephron’s latest is a charming, romantic, and very funny comedy that weaves together two true stories: Julia Child’s life in France as she attempts to learn the art of French cooking and pass it on by writing a cookbook; and Julie Powell’s attempt to cook every recipe in Child’s book within one year.

The film opens like a beautiful postcard, with a car being lowered from a steamer and driving through the French countryside. In it are Paul Child (Stanley Tucci) and his wife Julia (Meryl Streep), newly transferred to Paris by the United States government. It is post-war France, and Julia is an ebullient personality that absorbs her surroundings, especially the French cuisine, with complete enthusiasm. But the exotic new locale is entertaining in itself only for so long, and soon Julia feels tedium creeping in.

As she enjoys eating good food so much, Julia enrolls in cooking school. Determined to learn French cooking, and encouraged by her husband, she lets nothing keep her down – not even the scornful attitude of the provost of Le Cordon Bleu. Eventually Julia joins forces with two French ladies to run their own cooking classes and to assemble their recipes into a cookbook written in English for American middle-class women.

Meanwhile (or rather decades later in 2002), Julie Powell (Amy Adams) grows weary of her monotonous government job in New York City and gives herself purpose by taking up Child’s published book (which deflates a little of the suspense about whether Child will get her book published) and working her way through it in a year, with an accompanying blog for whoever in the vast world wants to read of her adventure. Needing to average about two recipes a day, Powell dives in fully, potentially at the expense of alienating her husband Eric (Chris Messina).

Anyone familiar with Nora Ephron’s repertoire will definitely sense her presence here. The deft hand that created Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail brings the same buoyant spirit to Julie & Julia. Some may criticize Ephron’s works as inconsequential fluff, but the older and crankier I get, the more I have to wonder: When did we reach a point where we believed it was a film’s moral obligation to have something serious to say? Films were once about entertaining us; critics have made us believe they have to be important. I sincerely appreciate Ephron’s light and frothy spirit of fun that infuses the three works of hers that I have now seen, a spirit that lets me bounce out of the theater with a smile. Oh, there is a “serious” side to Julie & Julia, but it could hardly be described as “weighty”, and any problems that rise up before our protagonists are fairly easily dismissed.

The contemporary half of the story has Ephron’s signature all over it. But in presenting Child’s life in France, Ephron proves that her sense of comedy and romance are not relegated strictly to present-day big cities. In fact, it is Child’s story that is the more engaging of the two; without it, Powell’s storyline would not have stood on its own as a captivating movie.

Julia Child is played by Meryl Streep (Mamma Mia!), and she is utterly convincing. The mannerisms and speech patterns I recall from the television show were all there. And had I not known any better, Streep’s imitation of Child’s voice would have completely fooled me. The performance is not mere mimicry; she definitely brings a real person out of the impersonation. Consider the quiet and tender way Child deals with her inability to have children. In Streep’s hands, these moments are subtle and believable, and the scenery is left unchewed.

A good performance is one in which the audience forgets the actor and sees only the character. Streep so successfully absorbed me that I would put her right up there with Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood or Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. When I originally reviewed the film for a local magazine, I wrote that it is one of those performances that should be nominated for an Oscar, but which probably won’t because it has none of the political gravitas or heavy social relevance that the Academy falsely assumes is a requisite for an award. I am pleased to have been wrong, as Streep did indeed receive a nomination, proving that once in a while the Academy actually has some class.

Amy Adams (Enchanted) takes over for Meg Ryan in Ephron’s handbook of characters, as “the cute leading lady.” I don’t say this with derision – Ephron writes cute leading ladies so that they are believable and worthy of empathy; she manages to avoid making them syrupy and stupid. Adams is worthy of the performance, with zest and a darling smile that make her character entirely enjoyable; but as already noted, she is given the less interesting material.

Conversely, it is Chris Messina (Vicki Cristina Barcelona) as Powell’s husband that outshines Stanley Tucci (The Terminal) as Child’s husband. For reasons I cannot put into words, I enjoyed watching Messina work alongside Adams. He didn’t feel like the typical movie spouse; he feels real, and loving, and someone I’d want my daughter to marry. Tucci is always a pleasure to watch and does an excellent job; but of the male roles, he is the one with the lesser material.

A couple of very minor things prevent me from giving it a perfect score, one of which is a totally useless scene in which the Powells sit and watch Dan Aykroyd’s impersonation of Julia Child on Saturday Night Live. Aykroyd is funny, but watching someone watch Aykroyd for a full minute is not.

Otherwise, I like this film. A lot. It’s happy and perky. It is brightly lit. It is colorful. Alexandre Desplat’s bright little melodies are catchy. And while pop songs in movies generally annoy me, Ephron has a way of choosing and adding songs to the mix that actually complements her films. And (call me a prude) the only people who sleep together are the married couples!

Dare I end with a bad pun? For delightful viewing on a quiet evening, Julie & Julia is the perfect recipe.

My Score: 9