Julie & Julia Reviewed

I went out to see a chick flick because it was about Julia Child and because it had Meryl Streep playing Julia Child. Meryl Streep is simply mesmerizing in any role she undertakes, though I doubt I can sit through Mama Mia but if you want to see powerhouse acting, check out Doubt, she’s frighteningly good and will leave you stuck in your seat, mouth agape and eyes wide open. Just brilliant.

Here she doesn’t disappoint either. She completely steals the entire movie despite being supported by extremely talented actors like geek favorite Stanley Tucci as her husband Paul Child – and I seriously doubt they could have found a better actor to play this role and to play against Meryl Streep, an excellent casting coup. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from the beginning.

Julie & Julia is film about two true stories and one of them is superfluous. There’s Julia Child’s story which is brilliant, funny, refreshing and needed more time while Julie Powell’s story while interesting doesn’t really hold up to the magnitude and legacy that is Julia Child. One plays like a bio-pic that deserved its own movie treatment and the other like regular run of the mill chick flick with a really silly piano score that was really getting on my nerves – that should have remained a blog. I don’t want to reduce her accomplishment because going from humble blogger to having a movie made about you is quite an accomplishment. But the story as a story simply doesn’t hold up next to Julia Child who revolutionized the culinary experience and gave birth to cooking shows and Food TV and celebrity chefs and all that. Plus one wonders if Powell hadn’t been riding on the back of Child would she have been noticed?

Julie Powell is an unhappy cubicle jockey looking for some focus and enchantment in her life. She lives in a dingy apartment above a Queens Pizzeria. Her friends are not really friends. Her hubby is a saint though. But she’s not a happy camper. She takes up a challenge to go through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year all while documenting her experience on her blog called “The Julie/Julia Project Nobody here but us servantless American cooks…” We go through her year as she starts her blog and cooking, has breakdowns, marital issues, becomes famous and eventually published. And with all seriousness the story is quite flat and doesn’t help get the movie going.

Simultaneously we have the other story, Julia Child as she discovers her love of French cuisine and then joining the Cordon Bleu school and becoming a publish author up to the point shortly before she becomes a TV Chef. This is the movie I paid to see. Meryl Streep completely owning the movie, the French décor, the butter obsession, the funny Julie Child disposition and her thirst for life. Just watching Meryl Streep every little mannerisms and deliberate gestures had me cheering throughout the movie and moved to tears for the sad moments. Such power in simple eye movements and a lip bite.

And to make things even better when Julia’s sister is introduced she is played by one of my favorite television actresses, Jane Lynch. Her normally deadpan cold hearted humor from Two and a Half Men and Glee is replaced by total hilarity here as she plays a over the top funny woman and makes for the funniest scenes I’ve seen in movies in years and I think the audience agreed. I think Jane Lynch deserves some great roles, she could probably play any type of roles I’m sure.

Both stories feel like separate movies stitched together. One looks a like a period piece and is funny and touching, the other is bland and looks like a chick flick. Lighting is brilliant in one, fall down absent in the other and the music. I’ll admit not clearly remembering the music in Child’s story line but in Powell’s story the music was lame faux-sentimental piano you can hear in all romance movie trailers.

I strongly believe that Julia Child’s legacy would have been better served by a full-blown biopic and not as a side-dish. But because it’s Julia Child and Meryl Streep this movie is well worth 4 sticks of butter out of 5.