Julie & Julia

[3.0
stars] [IMDb Link]

[Amazon Link]
(paid link)

Yes, this was my second Mary Lynn Rajskub movie in less than a week. Good catch.

Oh, yeah, Amy Adams is in it too. She plays the "Julie" part of the title: a 30ish New Yorker, married to a magazine editor. They live in a dinky Queens apartment, and Julie commutes in to her dreary soul-sapping cubicle job in lower Manhattan. Looking for life fulfillment after a lunch date with her irritating upwardly-mobile friends, she hits on the idea of working through all 500+ recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking over the coming year, and—and this is where things got interesting—blogging about it.

The movie has a parallel thread following Julia Child herself over (mostly) her years in France, the wife of a State Department employee; this role is played by someone with the unlikely name of "Meryl Streep." Julia is also looking for a path to self-realization, fulfillment, etc., and (as we know) decides to develop her cooking expertise.

Everybody's acting is really quite good, especially Ms. Streep, who as far as I can tell, managed to channel Julia Child's personality and mannerisms from beyond the grave. (Almost as good as Dan Aykroyd, whose classic SNL sketch is included.) Especially wonderful is Jane Lynch as Julia's sister Dorothy, even taller than, and equally enthusiastic as, Julia. She is a hoot.

Now, don't get me wrong, guys: this is a chick flick. The male characters are pretty much props. And (since it's written and directed by Nora Ephron), there are occasional paragraphs of dialog that sound like they came from When Harry Met Sally outtakes.

But it won't kill you to go see this with a female of your choice, as I did; you'll have a few laughs.

If you're interested in the blog Julie wrote, you can dig it out here; her current blog is here. She's considerably more potty-mouthed and politically tedious on her blogs than in the movie.


Last Modified 2024-01-31 5:19 AM EDT