Julie & Julia

Written: Nora Ephron, Julie Powell (book, ?Julie & Julia?), Julia Child (book, ?My Life In France?)
Directed: Nora Ephron

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and some sensuality

Starring: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanely Tucci, Chris Messina

Julia Child (Streep) is living in 1960s Paris with her husband Paul (Tucci) who is temporarily there for a government position. Bored with shopping and wanting an ?in? on the French way of life, Julia falls in love with French cuisine, but can?t find a cookbook in English. She decides to join a beginners cooking class at Le Cordon Bleu, but her knowledge of how to boil an egg puts her light-years ahead of her other classmates. Begging the headmistress for a spot in the advanced class for professional chefs, Julia strives to be the head of the class and get her degree.

Julie Powell (Adams) is on the cusp of 30 working in a crisis center for a post 9/11 New York city. Once an aspiring writer, Julie feels like she isn?t on the same level in her career as her executive buddies she went to college with. In her new apartment with her husband Eric (Messican), Julie decides that she is going to cook her way though Julia Child?s cookbook, and blog about it, hoping this will be the thing she needs to get out of her rut.

Julia and a couple other friends get together to open a cooking school for Americans that are in Paris but don?t have the means for a housekeeper to do the cooking for them. They decide that this will be the way to get what Julia has been looking for the whole time?a French cookbook in English. They embark on the difficult task of writing, testing, and publishing one of the most famous cookbooks ever.

Julie spends all of her time and effort outside of work on making her way through the recipes that Julia worked so hard to get published. She blogs all of her difficulties and triumphs (in more than just the kitchen) and soon develops a massive following as she works on 500+ dishes in only 365 days.

I mostly wanted to see this movie because I love food. And also Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Especially after seeing the two together in Doubt earlier this year. Granted, in this movie the two have no scenes together, but still, they?re great actresses. Meryl does an excellent job as Julia Child. She?s warm, and endearing, and just a little off, as Julia always seemed from the cooking shows I remember watching. I never would have figured that I would actually be interested in Julia Child?s life and how she became to be one of the most well-known cooks ever.

Something just wasn?t doing it for me with the Julie story though. Maybe I just didn?t care she was working a crap job and didn?t like moving out of Manhattan to Queens, even though the space was bigger and they lived above a pizza shop! And I?m sure it was cool in 2002 to be a blogger and have a following, but nowadays people?s cat?s have blogs so that part wasn?t impressive either. And I kept wondering where exactly she was getting the money to buy these expensive items to make the dishes with. Not that Amy Adams didn?t do her usual terrific job in the movie, I just didn?t like the Julie character all that much. She was just kind of a whiner.

It was a good mix of the storylines though. I think they spent equal amounts of time on both stories, which can be kind of difficult. And I really liked how the direction was done to make Meryl Streep really look to be 6?2? like Julia Child was.

I give the Julia part an A and the Julie part a C, C-, which leaves the movie with an overall B- rating. And make sure you eat before you see the movie because it will be worse than going to the grocery store hungry if you don?t.