Who's saying what
Agree with Ariel - Streep is excellent and an absolute riot... I like the movie but if anything was a bit long and lacked any sort of climax
What with the ever-growing public fascination with all things culinary it was only a matter of time before a movie about cooking was brought out of the storecupboard but its impossible to be cynical about a movie as light and breezy as Julie & Julia. Suckers for gastronomic erotica theres plenty of that to tuck into here you can practically taste that bruschetta but Julie & Julia is not a mere celebration of food but a pleasant pair of true stories about the hand that rocks the ladle.
Julia Child (channelled by Meryl Streep) is a tall warbly-voiced woman who lives in Paris with her American serviceman husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) in the early 1950s. Initially just looking for something to do she becomes the first American woman to enroll in Pariss Cordon Bleu cooking school where its apparent that what she lacks in natural ability in cooking she makes up for in her unrelenting enthusiasm.
Julias story is intercut with the close-enough-to-present day story of modern woman Julie Powell (Amy Adams). Julie lives with her husband Eric (Chris Messina) above a pizza parlour in Queens where she despairs of her crummy job her vapid friends and of never having finished anything. In Julies time Julia Child has already changed the face of cooking in America with her tome Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Julie hatches a plan to cook all 524 recipes in the book in a single year and to blog her progress.
The movie does have the slight problem of acquired local tastes. You get the distinct impression that the whole of America knows and loves Julia Child from her TV stint as The French Chef but she verges on larger-than-life for the uninitiated and Im not talking about Streeps platform heels. (Labouring the point of her stature in American culture imitation blancpain leman flyback watches
we see a clip of Dan Aykroyd impersonating Child in a Saturday Night Live skit. The sequence goes on for way too long as do most Saturday Night Live skits.)
In spite of that Streeps dynamic with Tucci is thoroughly believable Julia and Pauls childless but happy marriage is a joy to watch and Jane Lynch is her usual scene-stealing self as Julias even taller sister. Amy Adams representing this side of 2000 also holds her own.
Writer-director-producer Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle Youve Got Mail) has done a superb job imitation jaeger lecoultre watches
both in writing and directing of mirroring the parallel stories of these women their ambitions and the support of their husbands. Julie and Julia are meant for each other. Ephron shows their connection across time with the same sort of poetic touches that we saw in Sam and Annie in Sleepless in Seattle.
Only theres no climactic meeting on top of the Empire State Building this time. The movie hints at an intersection of Julie and Julias stories dangles it there for a bit then abruptly snatches it away. Its true to the real-life events but its a bit of a nuisance plot-wise.
At 123 minutes Julie & Julia does not offer up anything resembling high-stakes drama which will be tiresome for some. On the other hand michele urban petite replica paypal
its rather nice to see a new recipe coming out of Hollywood handled deftly by one of its master chefs. After some missteps in recent years its a happy return to the kitchen for Ephron.
Julie and Julia opens in cinemas on Thursday October 8 2009.
You can watch the
Julie and Julia movie trailer here on TheVine.
Agree with Ariel - Streep is excellent and an absolute riot... I like the movie but if anything was a bit long and lacked any sort of climax