Yes this is one of those based on a true story films, however this a bit different than the norm. This tells the story of two different women, in two different times, and one directly affects the other. The Julia Child’s side of things, we first meet her after she has moved to Paris with her husband and her cooking profession is taking off. The Julie Powell side of things, we first meet her as she is moving with her husband, she isn’t terribly happy with her job and she wants to start something she can finish, which happens to be cook all of the recipes in Child’s book ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ in a year and keeping track of the progress via blog. This film was based on the books by both Julie and Julia, and it was an interesting idea to have two stories, with these women.
Meryl Streep is simply fantastic as Julia Child, I wasn’t sure how this was going to work, but she becomes the character! She is so enjoyable, that you really get into her story and you don’t want to leave her. I like Amy Adams a lot, and she did pretty well as Julie, she really doesn’t look like her usual cute as button self here. I felt that Julie’s part of the story was not as interesting, despite the fact that I could relate to certain things she was going through at the time. I think what faltered is that the script was too interesting in Julia and some of the Julie stuff fell flat. I definitely enjoyed the Julia stuff a lot more, and I got more interested and engaged in her story. Julie’s stuff is good but not as good and sometimes those bits do drag a little. The film’s running time is around two hours and sometimes you really feel it. I felt about 20mins could have been cut and the film still would have delivered quite well. Both women are great though, Meryl especially and she really deserves the recognition for this role. There is just something about her as Julia that clicks so well, I mean just watch a video of the real Julia and you will see what I mean.
The cooking aspect was good, and it actually really made me want to jump in the kitchen! I liked how we see Julia taking classes, and making meals. The relationship with her husband is really touching, he is so supportive of her. You just want to wrap these two up in a big red ribbon! Stanley Tucci was a great choice, he was fantastic as Paul and this was something so different from the last role I saw him in (The Lovely Bones) and it goes to show what a fantastic and versatile actor he is. On the other side, Chris Messina who plays Julie’s husband Eric was alright. His character was not all that supportive of Julie, maybe if he had been she wouldn’t have gotten so self involved. But the film needed some kind of conflict to resolve, but he just was not all that likeable and at times you feel for Julie and her situation.
Nora Ephron is very hit and miss for me, but this film was certainly a hit despite the flaws. The good definitely outweigh the bad for sure, and it is a good and enjoyable film. I think one thing Nora Ephron films suffer from is they are a tad too long and by the end it feels like it drags (You’ve Got Mail certainly felt like that) and some better editing would help. While this film was long, it didn’t drag too much and it goes move along nicely for the most part. There are some really great scenes as well, which are beautifully done, yet also so simple. A really great and moving scene was the meeting at the train station between Julia and her penpal Avis, so simple but so beautiful and moving. Easy film to recommend, if you enjoy these types of films and you are fans of Meryl and Amy it is a must see for sure.
The Super Network 