'Julie & Julia' – The most delicious movie of the year!

Posted on August 13, 2009 - 5:00am by michael Julie & Julia is an absolute culinary delight of a film. It's a celebration of fine food and the simple joy of cooking, punctuated by the thrill of cooking something really spectacular. I’ve done this a few times myself, but only about 5-7% of the time that I attempt to cook real, full meals. But I’m telling you, it’s a powerful feeling when you cook something that really turns out right. Julie Powell and Julia Child lived half a century apart, but both are similar in all of the most important ways, including a lack of direction in their lives and deep, powerful love of food, and of cooking. Julia Child (portrayed in the movie by Meryl Streep) was the wife of an American ambassador who, at the age of 40, developed her intense love of food with her interest and natural skill in cooking, enrolled in an advanced French cooking class, ultimately becoming one of the most influential American chefs of the 20th century. 20 years later, Julie Powell (Amy Adams), a young woman newly married and living with her husband above a pizza parlor in Queens, finds Child’s cookbook and, literally just for something to do, decides to attempt to cook all 524 of Child’s recipes in 365 days and maintain a blog about it. So here’s the plot in 100 words – Julie sets herself to the task of cooking all of Julia Child’s recipes, and as she does this, we cut back and forth between her efforts in modern day Queens and Julia’s initial entrance into the culinary world in mid-century Paris. Julia meets three other women and spends years trying to write and publish the book that eventually made her famous, while Julie works her way through that book, attempting to meet her own deadline and deal with the strains that the project puts on her young marriage. Interestingly, we know the ending of both stories, but neither feels predictable. The characterization will never let you forget who the stars of the movie are. It’s very much about Julie and Julia, and their husbands, the main supporting actors, are there for little more reason than to dote on their wives and provide moments of strain in key scenes. Meryl Streep delivers yet another joy of a performance that will surely bring in her annual Best Actress nomination, and Amy Adams, I understand, encompasses the look and behavior of the real Julie Powell with astonishing accuracy, but unfortunately her character is still totally two-dimensional and stale. The movie is based on her book, but she still comes across as an opportunist building upon the real work of someone else, which may be why the two never meet, and why Mrs. Child was so disgusted with Powell's work. Stanley Tucci plays Julia's doting husband wonderfully, despite having not a scrap of chemistry with Streep, but the real problem is Chris Messina as Julie’s husband Eric. I can imagine Nora Ephron directing his early scenes in the movie, where he and Julie converse about what she should do with her life over a dinner that she cooked. “It’s gotta look like you really really love the food,” Ephron must have said. In a stark display of undeveloped acting skills, Messina doesn’t seem to know better than to slovenly shove food in his face and then sloppily attempt to talk around it to his wife. Maybe he hadn’t read the whole script yet and so didn’t realize that this movie would have a sophisticated, educated and, ahem, elderly audience, most of whom would be thoroughly unimpressed with watching the brilliant success story of a woman married to a total slob. However, it is for other reasons that I worry that Julie & Julia will not be fully appreciated, or have the full effect that it really should have. Even with a more mature audience, I worry that people who are not at least a little but into cooking themselves won’t be able to relate to it, and won’t be able to appreciate the life lessons that it entails. The movie isn’t about Julie Powell or Julia Child, and it’s not about getting your book published or your blog turned into a movie, it’s about cooking amazing food and eating it at home with your family which, I understand, is a something of a healthy social habit. But most of all, I just hope that people will see it and become infused with a sudden interest to learn their way around their own kitchens. That’s what this country really needs, I'm telling you. If everyone in America, at least a few times a week, cooked a real, complex meal from a recipe book like Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” I believe it would change the whole mentality of the country. The war would end, unemployment would plummet, the health care issue would solve itself after a sharp decrease in heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes, a period of unmatched economic prosperity would ensue, and all partisan bickering in Washington would turn into vast, gleeful banquets that last for days and days where thousands upon thousands of people of all races and demographics and political alignments would come together to share their magnificent culinary creations. Also, global warming would disappear, along with all of the world’s pollution. Okay, maybe that’s a little optimistic, but consider this. You know that hollandaise sauce that you get at restaurants that just about blows your mind every time you taste it? Did you know it’s mostly just melted butter, egg yolks and a little lemon juice and salt? You would be shocked at how easy it is to make. So get your loved one(s) together, whip up some of that stuff and pour it over a piece of tenderloin grilled to your taste, sprinkle a little cayenne pepper over it, and let the healing begin. Note: In 1996 Stanley Tucci co-starred in a film called Big Night, the plot of which almost exactly mirrors one scene in Julie & Julia, where Julie goes to tremendous lengths to cook a special meal for a famous guest. I haven't seen that movie in more than a decade and my mouth still waters every time I think about it. I highly recommend both! The Bean Meter [caption id="attachment_50609" align="aligncenter" width="303" caption="4 Beans out of 5."][/caption]