The DVD of "Julie and Julia" was recently released -- perhaps some of you received one for Christmas -- so I thought I'd offer my two cents about the film. I hated it. Here's why:
Granted I'm a man and this is a woman's movie -- I've heard that fifty times -- but the reviews were so spectacular, the word-of-mouth has been so enthusiastic, the box-office so impressive, that my curiosity was aroused. I'm a former screenwriter and a movie buff, so I had to see what the brouhaha is all about.
It's about nothing.
Sure it's "cute," but this movie has no story. There is no drama, no plot twist, no suspense, no nothing. Here's a brief synopsis: Julia Child lives in Paris with her husband (Stanley Tucci), who works for the American Embassy. His wife is bored so, after trying hat-making and bridge lessons, she ends up learning how to cook at the Cordon Bleu. She excels. She meets a pair of French woman, who are writing a cookbook for Americans. They ask her to help them. She agrees. It's no plot surprise that the book gets published, but that's the climax of the movie. This is about it for the Julia Child story.
Julie (Amy Adams) is a bored government clerk who's obsessed with Julia Child, and decides to cook a recipe from Child's cookbook everyday and blog about it. She succeeds and gets a book deal.
That's it.
Sure, Streep's grating, high-pitched voice is a spot-on impersonation of Child, and she looks like her --- tall, gangly and cloyingly cheerful - but there's not much else. You have to give credit to Tucci for enduring this woman for more than a month. She's too nice. He's too nice. There's not an iota of drama in their relationship.
Same goes for Julie's story although, unlike Child, she's short and cute. Julie is a newlywed, and her husband (Jim Messina) is either an idiot or a saint (she calls him the latter, but I would say the former) for putting up with a woman who is completely obsessed with a chef, and speaks of nothing else throughout the entire film. If my wife spoke of nothing but Julia Child for a year, if she adored this woman beyond all sane boundaries, I'd be concerned about her mental state, and possibly have her committed.
Folks, Julia Child was only a CHEF. Sure, she brought French cooking to American housewives, which was considered revolutionary in those days, but she was only a chef. She was not Thomas Edison; she was not Jonas Salk; she was not Winston Churchill.
If you're a foodie and you get off on seeing every permutation of food and cooking -- mixing,boiling, filleting, spicing, people saying "yum" every ten minutes -- definitely see this movie. Otherwise, do something really constructive -- order a pizza and take a nap.
