2009 Review #68: Julie & Julia

Julie & Julia

Rated PG-13

(brief strong language and some sensuality)

2 hours 3 minutes

Storyline:

Julia Child's story of her start in the cooking profession is intertwined with blogger Julie Powell's 2002 challenge to cook all the recipes in Child's first book.

Cast:

Meryl Streep

Amy Adams

Stanley Tucci

Critics Grade:

B

(Consensus: Boosted by Meryl Streep's charismatic performance as Julia Child, Julie and Julia is a light, but fairly entertaining culinary comedy.)

My Grade:

B-

I am a huge fan of cooking. I love creating delicious food from many different ingredients. Julia Child was on the forefront of teaching people all over the world how to make amazing meals at home for your entire family and all your friends to enjoy. She was an inspiration to millions of people. Including a woman named Julie Powell, who blogged for one whole year about how she was going through Childs complete cook book and cooking all 524 recipes in 365 days. The film follows both woman's stories and inter connects them. I love cooking. I love Oscar winner Meryl Streep (Doubt, The Devil Wears Prada) so the two of those things combined should equal a hell of a fun movie for me to watch!

Well I can't sit here and honestly say this was a great movie. I really just thought this was a standard movie. It was good, but I found nothing about it's storytelling or direction to be all that remarkable or fresh. I mean sure, it has a sweet tale to tell, and I loved the half of the film that was about Julia Child. But I don't know, there wasn't anything raw or risky about any of these woman's lives and I hate to say that because Julia Child is an American icon. She had a pretty great life, and had a phenomenal husband. There never seemed to be a moment in her life (that was shown to us in the film) that was all that heart breaking. But I guess this is more of a high spirited tale after all. Same goes for Julie Powell. It was written well, and the story was not bad, I just didn't get completely into this film.

What I did get into was the fantastic performance by Meryl Streep. This woman does no wrong. She will probably get another Oscar nomination for this film, and she may even get herself a win this time around. She was brilliant as Julia Child, there was this impeccable, uncanny resemblance between the two look wise as well as vocally. Streep captures our hearts as this love able and vibrant woman that once blessed our TV screens. She's funny and charming. She's an absolute joy to watch, and this is easily one of my favorite performances of the year. Amy Adams is good as she usually always is, but she wasn't all that stand out-ish. Her performance was pretty average and nothing was all that great about it other than the fact that it was just a good performance. Stanley Tucci needs to get recognized by the larger awards. He is just such a reliable and talented actor as he once again was in this film. Very good performance!

So I don't know what to really tell you. This IS a good movie. It's better that a lot of movies this year. It has a sweet story, that is just a bit bland for my liking. I just never really got immersed in the story or really the characters...that being said there were one or two very good performances. This is one of those movies...that if it looks good to you, than you should see it. But if you think it looks boring...that for you it probably will be. I don't know, I liked it...I just didn't love it.