February 11, 2010: Julie & Julia
I like Meryl Streep. I like Amy Adams. I like food. I like blogs. So why does Julie & Julia not resonate with me?
The idea of this film is original and interesting, and has great potential. The true story of pioneering American chef Julia Child (based on a book about her life, and played here by Streep) is intertwined with the true story of 30-ish New Yorker Julie Powell (based on her blog, and played by Adams) who decided to try cook all 500+ recipes in Child’s groundbreaking French cuisine cookbook in the space of one year and blog about it. The execution of this film totally misfired for me. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences totally eats it up, if you’ll excuse the pun, when actors portray real people in films, hence Streep’s Best Actress nomination for this film. However, I found the Julia Child accent to be distracting rather than charming, the Julie character was unrelentingly whiny and vacuous, and endless formulaic elements such as Julie’s lunch with her rich successful friends just scream lazy writing.
The relationship between Julia and her husband, played by Stanley Tucci, does provide some sweet moments and the film captures their palpable love, perhaps in unintended contrast with Julie’s supposedly solid relationship with her boyfriend, a relationship in which he persists for some reason I can’t fathom. A subplot concerning McCarthyism and the politics of the 1950s further cements the team of Julia and her husband during difficult times.
There’s not much more I want to say about this. I don’t know whether it’s the performances or the underlying characters that didn’t do it for me, but does it really matther which it was?
Julie. Julia. Whatever. Leave me alone.
Post a Comment