How many movies have you seen that can claim to be based on not one but two true stories? That’s probably the first thing that gets you intrigued about Julie & Julia (J&J). Julia Child’s book, My Life in France and Julie Child’s book of the same name as the movie are beautifully blended by director Norah Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle / You’ve Got Mail) to give a complete feeling of, what can be best described in three letters, Joy. The very essence of the movie is the Joy that one feels in doing something that s/he has an absolute passion for. Something that you are so much in love with that you take every single opportunity to do it or better still make opportunities. I keep telling people that the most difficult thing to find out is that one thing. Julia Child and Julie Powell both went through enough and more pangs of doubt and exasperation before they found at that one thing in their life – Cooking.
Julia Child (Merly Streep) is thrilled to bits about being in Paris, thanks to her husband, Paul (Stanley Tucci) who works in the Foreign Ministry. She likes everything French. Right from the way people speak and behave to French food to the houses, the streets etc. Most of all, she loves to eat. Not knowing what she would like to do with her free time, she starts doing odd courses here and there like making hats but doesn’t really find anything that pleases her. Till she of course lands up taking a small cooking course for French Housewives. Upset with her first class – boiling an egg – she asks for an advanced course instead. The instructor, Madame Brassart (Joan Juliet Buck), mocks the idea but allows her to take up the course for professionals, where she is the only woman. While she is doing the course, she meets Simone Beck (Linda Emond) and Louisette Bertholle (Helen Carey) who ask her to collaborate with them on a cook book for “The Servantless American Housewife”. The Legend of Julia Child is about to be written
Cut to over 50 years later – Julie Powell (Amy Adams) is almost 30 years old. She works in a government agency that helps victims of 9/11 cope up with the after effects and also with stuff like their insurance claims. Not the most pleasant job in the world especially when you have people screaming at you first thing in the morning – and they are justified in doing so. But she gets her release every day when she comes back home to the “surety” of cooking dinner for herself and husband Eric Powell (Chriss Messina). In a ritual meeting with her very well off friends, one of them Annabelle (Jillian Bach) mentions that she blogs about her life in general and her experiences. Intrigued, she asks Eric about what blogging is all about. After a quick debate on what she can blog about, she decides to take up the challenge of cooking each one of Julia’s recipes over 365 days i.e. over 500 recipes in exactly a year. That marks the beginning of the Julie / Julia Project.
J&J marks the coming together of Meryl Streep and Amy Adams once again (Doubt being the other instance) but they don’t share screen time unfortunately. That, however, doesn’t deprive the audience of the complete joy of watching 2 absolutely brilliant actresses. Amy Adams, in what has been her best performance to date along with Doubt – add to the list folks – actors who have come of age. News is she is going to play Janis Joplin in an eponymously titled movie about “The Girl” which will release next year. And although Meryl Streep won her 2 Oscars for movies over 3 decades back, I think her best performances have come in movies with Amy Adams. Why she lost out to Sandra Bullock (not that Sandra Bullock did a lousy job) will remain one of the biggest unsolved mysteries of our time. Coming to the easiest job in the movie – direction – Norah Ephron has this knack of getting her casting so right that she probably doesn’t have to do anything after that. The actors manage it themselves. But she keeps the movie going like nothing she has done before. So well that I was tempted to classify this movie as a comedy – the humour is seriously good . In summation, a must watch for young and old alike. 8 on 10.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi77595161/
Julia Child (Merly Streep) is thrilled to bits about being in Paris, thanks to her husband, Paul (Stanley Tucci) who works in the Foreign Ministry. She likes everything French. Right from the way people speak and behave to French food to the houses, the streets etc. Most of all, she loves to eat. Not knowing what she would like to do with her free time, she starts doing odd courses here and there like making hats but doesn’t really find anything that pleases her. Till she of course lands up taking a small cooking course for French Housewives. Upset with her first class – boiling an egg – she asks for an advanced course instead. The instructor, Madame Brassart (Joan Juliet Buck), mocks the idea but allows her to take up the course for professionals, where she is the only woman. While she is doing the course, she meets Simone Beck (Linda Emond) and Louisette Bertholle (Helen Carey) who ask her to collaborate with them on a cook book for “The Servantless American Housewife”. The Legend of Julia Child is about to be written
Cut to over 50 years later – Julie Powell (Amy Adams) is almost 30 years old. She works in a government agency that helps victims of 9/11 cope up with the after effects and also with stuff like their insurance claims. Not the most pleasant job in the world especially when you have people screaming at you first thing in the morning – and they are justified in doing so. But she gets her release every day when she comes back home to the “surety” of cooking dinner for herself and husband Eric Powell (Chriss Messina). In a ritual meeting with her very well off friends, one of them Annabelle (Jillian Bach) mentions that she blogs about her life in general and her experiences. Intrigued, she asks Eric about what blogging is all about. After a quick debate on what she can blog about, she decides to take up the challenge of cooking each one of Julia’s recipes over 365 days i.e. over 500 recipes in exactly a year. That marks the beginning of the Julie / Julia Project.
J&J marks the coming together of Meryl Streep and Amy Adams once again (Doubt being the other instance) but they don’t share screen time unfortunately. That, however, doesn’t deprive the audience of the complete joy of watching 2 absolutely brilliant actresses. Amy Adams, in what has been her best performance to date along with Doubt – add to the list folks – actors who have come of age. News is she is going to play Janis Joplin in an eponymously titled movie about “The Girl” which will release next year. And although Meryl Streep won her 2 Oscars for movies over 3 decades back, I think her best performances have come in movies with Amy Adams. Why she lost out to Sandra Bullock (not that Sandra Bullock did a lousy job) will remain one of the biggest unsolved mysteries of our time. Coming to the easiest job in the movie – direction – Norah Ephron has this knack of getting her casting so right that she probably doesn’t have to do anything after that. The actors manage it themselves. But she keeps the movie going like nothing she has done before. So well that I was tempted to classify this movie as a comedy – the humour is seriously good . In summation, a must watch for young and old alike. 8 on 10.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi77595161/
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