Julie and Julia Leaves You Hungry!
Julie and Julia splits its time between the life of Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and a later devotee of Julia's work named Julie (Amy Adams), a working class "mid-level bureaucrat" living in Queens. Julia arrives in Paris with her husband (Stanley Tucci), who works for the American Embassy. Bored with her life and clearly in need of some pursuit to occupy her mind and talents, Julia ends up choosing culinary school. Although she starts as an underdog, her hard work and persistence pay off when she is asked to help write a French cookbook for American readers. Simultaneously, Julie embarks upon the daunting task of cooking all 524 of Julia's recipes in one year and blogging about each experience.
There are both contrasts as well as striking similarities in the lives of these two women . Julia's husband is entirely supportive, and their relationship never suffers as a result of her efforts to work with her co-writers on the book. Julie, by contrast, becomes self-absorbed with her endeavors. The ensuing conflict with her partner (Chris Messina) leads him to leave for a brief time. In terms of similarities, both women spend a great deal of time wondering whether or not their work will be taken seriously. Both struggle with doubts about the value of their writing. And in the end, both are overjoyed to find that they do indeed have an audience.
The last time Streep and Adams appeared together in a film was in "Doubt". Both are brilliant performers, but Streep is arguably the best movie actress of all time, if not the modern era. Her vocal inflections capture the sound of Julia Child's distinctive voice in a way which causes the viewer to forget that Child herself is not actually on screen. There is tremendous comedic value at number of points in the film even though it does not have the feel of a comedy. Julie is significantly less likable of a character than Julia, but the viewer ends up pulling for her as she cooks and writes her way toward culinary excellence. This movie will warm your heart and make you want to try your hand at some high French cuisine. I give it four stars.
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