During a Q&A at a preview screening of Julie and Julia, Julie Powell (the real life Julie from the film) was asked if this film was “food porn.” Powell did not think so, and I agree with her. People who like lingering shots of voluptuous food will enjoy Julie and Julia. But you do not have to like cooking at all to love this story of two women with similar names and similar desires who triumphed over similar challenges. 

Based on Julie Powell’s book “Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen” and Julia Child’s, “My Life in France,” the film (smartly written and directed by Nora Ephron) alternates between each woman’s story. Although Julie (Amy Adams) lives in post 9/11 New York and Julia (Meryl Streep) lives in Post World War II France, both women struggle to find their place in the world. Both are blessed with supportive husbands. Eric Powell (Chris Messina) gives Julie the idea for her blog, the Julie/Julia Project.  Paul Child (Stanley Tucci) encourages Julia to follow her passion for eating and cooking. Both encounter friends and colleagues who discourage them. Julie has an unfinished novel and a demoralizing job, while her high powered friends make deals on their cell phones. When Julia starts cooking school in Paris, a supercilious instructor tells her “You have no talent for cooking.” Both women set out to prove their detractors wrong, and to prove something to themselves. Julie decides to cook her way through Julia Child’s cookbook, and blog about it every day.  Julia perseveres and practices cutting a mountain of onions, until she gets it right.

After their divine performances in Doubt, it is great to see Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in a film together, although they share no scenes in this film.  Meryl Streep is remarkable as usual; she looks and sounds like Julia Child, but her nuanced performance is much more than an imitation. She infuses Julia Child with warmth, charm and sensitivity. My sense of Child was formed watching  Dan Aykroyd imitate her on Saturday Night Live, so I enjoyed the romantic scenes with Child and husband Paul (another strong performance from Stanley Tucci) as they eat together and worry about Senator McCarthy’s effect on Paul’s career.  During the preview Q&A Powell said that she was not as nice as the Julie portrayed by Amy Adams. Powell does have a darker quality and I suspect that the meltdowns in the film were more intense in reality. However, Adams is charming and I would watch her in anything.  Adams and Messina have real chemistry, and I especially enjoyed Julie’s scenes with husband Eric as he ate her creations and supported her when she wanted to give up the blog.

I found that I enjoyed both stories equally, and identified with both creative journeys. I was moved by the way Julia inspired Julie. Julie watched tapes of Julia Child cooking, and appreciated the way Child laughed at her own mistakes and told the audience to “have no fear.” Julie takes this to heart, and cooks both delicious looking and some rather disgusting dishes from Child’s book.  But even better, she keeps writing the blog, even when she is tired from working all day and feels like giving up. And the blog is her best dish.

If this film were a work of fiction, Child and Powell would meet and become good friends. But Powell began writing her blog only a few years before Child’s death at 91.  Near the end of the film, as Powell’s blog starts becoming successful, she hears from a reporter that Child has no interest in reading or hearing about her blog.  Julie’s eyes fill with tears as her husband consoles her with the idea that the Julia in her head was the real inspiration for her work.  And Julie must accept that.

Powell was asked about this at the Q&A, and seems to be constantly asked about Child’s negative reaction to the project. On her blog, Powell recently answered the question, “…the fact that she might not for whatever reason adore me as much as I adore her has absolutely no bearing on what is wonderful about her. Throughout her life, Julia nurtured and encouraged and gave great help to chefs and writers both. And she changed my life. No matter what she – or anyone else, for that matter – thought of the project. I know why I did what I did, and I am proud that I spent a year writing and cooking in tribute to one the most wonderful women I’ve ever not met.”  For that is what Julie and Julia is really about-a woman whose life was changed by a woman she never met. 

Julie and Julia.  Directed by Nora Ephron.   Meryl Streep (Julia Child), Amy Adams (Julie Powell), Stanley Tucci (Paul Child) and Chris Messina (Eric Powell).  Columbia Pictures, 2009.

 

Gail sees a movie appears every Wednesday.

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