Nora Ephron adapts two bestselling memoirs, one by Julie Powell called "Julie & Julia" and the other by Julia Child "My Life in France", written with Child's grand nephew Alex Prud'homme. Based on these two true stories, "Julie & Julia" entertains and enlightens us at the same time. The audience gets a front row seat as we see the struggles and joys of trying to conquer a task that most of us take for granted. Cooking.
Paul (Stanley Tucci) and Julia Child (Meryl Streep) have just moved to Paris, Paul is the Ambassador and they both feel that their time in Paris will be wonderful. While Eric (Chris Messina) and Julie Powell (Amy Adams) have just made a move of their own. Julie works for a Government department herself, she answers phone calls for post 9-11 survivors. Though many years separate the two women, one will influence the other so deeply that it will change the course of her life. Julia struggles on a daily basis in Paris, she is an American in a country that doesn't cater to her every whim. Julie struggles as well, she is still under the thumb of her mother, her boss and her friends, Julie is looking for the one thing that she can finish. Julie decides to go through the Julia Child bible, Child's cookbook is the ideal thing for Julie, she loves to cook so she decides with the help of Eric to cook all of the recipes in the book in one year and write a blog about her attempt.
Days pass and dinners are cooked Julie celebrates a birthday with friends, Sarah (Mary Lynn Rajskub) is one of Julie's best friends and she is supportive of what Julie is trying to do, the ordeals that Julie goes through are nothing compared to what Julia goes through just trying to get the book published. In the beginning Julia found life in Paris to be fun, but as time crawled past, she got bored, she tried her hand at hat making and found it dull, she tried playing bridge and found that dull, so she enlists in one of the most prestigious cooking schools in France. Julia is placed in a beginners class and finds that to be insulting, she asks to be placed in a more advanced class, she is placed in one of the best classes and at first is overwhelmed by the teacher and other students, but she won't quit. Both women are determined to succeed, Julie does find out that sometimes food just won't come out right, attempt after attempt is made, when the inevitable happens Julie just crashes, this causes conflict with Eric and he walks out.
When Paul is transferred away from Paris Julia is in the midst of writing a cookbook for Americans in Paris, two women that have befriended Julia have asked her to help them get their cookbook published, Simone Beck (Linda Emond) and Louisette Bertholle (Helen Carey) are all set to get this book going, but one thing or another always comes up. Louisette is always leaving for one reason or another and is doing little to help the others get the book going. Simone and Julia are working day and night redoing the book, when a publisher in Boston wants to publish the book, they want the two women to shorten the book, they don't want volumes of recipes, they want something cute and quick. When the book is finally published Julia reacts with so much joy that it is contagious, we laugh with her. When Julie gets to the last recipe in the book her little blog has become so huge that people are now sending her food to help her cook. Oh the joys of cooking, the sweet taste of success couldn't be better for both women and it's a joy to watch as it comes to pass.
I give Julie & Julia a 4 and on my avoidance scale I give it a 0, the stars of this movie work so hard to make this film work, Amy Adams is once again a joy to watch, she makes any character come to life and her smile is infectious. Meryl Streep catches Julia Child's accent perfectly and if you close your eyes you will believe that it is here you are watching. The cast carries this movie throughout and is a very entertaining movie to watch. Take your family and let them discover for themselves just what a joy it can be when you have mastered the one thing you love.
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