Biopics are hard to sit through if you're tired of seeing drug addicts, hookers and mafia types mingle their way to fame and fortune. Luckily "Julie & Julia" is light entertainment that isn't about any of these things.
Amy Adams is Julie Powell, an underachieving nobody who moves to Queens with her husband in a small apartment above a pizzeria. Every day she sits at her cubicle coping with callers who are still sick with 9-11 trauma. While her more successful girlfriends are all VPs of their companies, Powell is a minute insect who longs to be someone at the age of thirty. Can we blame her? She's impending on a mid-life crisis and is stuck with a husband whose more dull then a stack of nails.
One night she decides she does have a talent- she can throw down in the kitchen like nobody's business. And the food she prepares is yummy and good! So she decides to blog about her cooking all 500+ recipes in "The Art of French Cooking" from Julia Child, the famous renown chef and Television personality. Adams, who has found a knack for her films roles (she's Australian but sounds perfectly Midwestern) falls right into home with her whiny character.
Enter Meryl Streep, who plays Julia Child. Director Nora Ephran ("Sleepless in Seattle") has merged these two women's stories together, and as Adams' storyline unfolds, so does Streep's. The Julia Child storyline is more fun, as we embark on a journey to see how Ms. Child came to be the robust, lively and 6'2 legend that she will remain today. Streep has the gusto to play her to, though sometimes her uncanny accent goes a little over the top ("Ohhhhh yessss, I knoowwww"). Still, there's a lot to like in the performances, contrived from Streep like a Saturday Night Live sketch with more stuffing, and plenty of imminent chemistry with co-star Stanley Tucci, as her patient husband.
"Julie & Julia" is a fun time in the theater (and it makes you hungry), but what lacks from this two-character tale is tension and plot. What really happens? Julie has a few meltdowns in the kitchen and keeps dropping her boneless chicken on the floor. Julia can't pass the exams to get her cooking certificate? Where's the savage villain? Where's the subplot involving Child and her distaste of Powell later on when she found out about the blog? Now THAT would be something to boost the structure of the plot. There's never a dull moment in the movie (except maybe in the final fourth), but there certainly was room for MORE concise paranoia in which we could see the two women really tackle their issues. Another critic made a good point about the Adams character- where's her supportive gay work friend? Is her bland husband the only source she has to lean upon- and feed? Streep lost the Oscar for Best Actress last year to Kate Winslet in "The Reader". While I highly supported a win for Streep in "Doubt", there was no 'doubt' Winslet was past due for her subversive work in Daldry's masterpiece. However, is "Julie & Julia" really going to win Streep her third Oscar? She's charming as Julia Child, and nails the characterization- but there isn't a scene that truly depicts her as a woman (minus perhaps the breakdown in the kitchen, but that's nothing to hoohah about). A tasty morsel that's best described as a prominent appetizer.
FINAL GRADE: B-
Amy Adams is Julie Powell, an underachieving nobody who moves to Queens with her husband in a small apartment above a pizzeria. Every day she sits at her cubicle coping with callers who are still sick with 9-11 trauma. While her more successful girlfriends are all VPs of their companies, Powell is a minute insect who longs to be someone at the age of thirty. Can we blame her? She's impending on a mid-life crisis and is stuck with a husband whose more dull then a stack of nails.
One night she decides she does have a talent- she can throw down in the kitchen like nobody's business. And the food she prepares is yummy and good! So she decides to blog about her cooking all 500+ recipes in "The Art of French Cooking" from Julia Child, the famous renown chef and Television personality. Adams, who has found a knack for her films roles (she's Australian but sounds perfectly Midwestern) falls right into home with her whiny character.
Enter Meryl Streep, who plays Julia Child. Director Nora Ephran ("Sleepless in Seattle") has merged these two women's stories together, and as Adams' storyline unfolds, so does Streep's. The Julia Child storyline is more fun, as we embark on a journey to see how Ms. Child came to be the robust, lively and 6'2 legend that she will remain today. Streep has the gusto to play her to, though sometimes her uncanny accent goes a little over the top ("Ohhhhh yessss, I knoowwww"). Still, there's a lot to like in the performances, contrived from Streep like a Saturday Night Live sketch with more stuffing, and plenty of imminent chemistry with co-star Stanley Tucci, as her patient husband.
"Julie & Julia" is a fun time in the theater (and it makes you hungry), but what lacks from this two-character tale is tension and plot. What really happens? Julie has a few meltdowns in the kitchen and keeps dropping her boneless chicken on the floor. Julia can't pass the exams to get her cooking certificate? Where's the savage villain? Where's the subplot involving Child and her distaste of Powell later on when she found out about the blog? Now THAT would be something to boost the structure of the plot. There's never a dull moment in the movie (except maybe in the final fourth), but there certainly was room for MORE concise paranoia in which we could see the two women really tackle their issues. Another critic made a good point about the Adams character- where's her supportive gay work friend? Is her bland husband the only source she has to lean upon- and feed? Streep lost the Oscar for Best Actress last year to Kate Winslet in "The Reader". While I highly supported a win for Streep in "Doubt", there was no 'doubt' Winslet was past due for her subversive work in Daldry's masterpiece. However, is "Julie & Julia" really going to win Streep her third Oscar? She's charming as Julia Child, and nails the characterization- but there isn't a scene that truly depicts her as a woman (minus perhaps the breakdown in the kitchen, but that's nothing to hoohah about). A tasty morsel that's best described as a prominent appetizer.
FINAL GRADE: B-