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By Stacy Kess
♦♦♦ out of ♦♦♦♦♦
Food maintains life. Good food enhances living. And both Julie and Julia understand that in the movie of their namesakes.
Julie & Julia follows the story of Julie, a failed writer in Queens, on a quest to make every recipe in Julia Child’s cookbook, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” over 365 days. To be precise, that’s 524 recipes.
The film is based on the memoirs of Julie Powell (“Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously”) and Julia Child (“My Life in France”). It was adapted into the screenplay by Nora Ephron.
The film switches between Julia’s life in France and around Europe, and Julie’s modern life in Queens. The switches, however, are fluid, as the two lives are portrayed as parallel. This is often pointed out by Julie as she cooks her way through Child’s cookbook, making one tasty morsel after another.
But don’t be fooled: this isn’t a cooking show. This is a memoir, which includes all the ups and downs of real life, if not a little more dramatic. Julie risks her career and marriage to finish the year-long challenge, which Julia faces adversarial French cooks. Yet, Ephron, as both writer and director, maintains the mood as comical and fun, avoiding the heavy-handed drama so often characteristic of even the most fun memoir films.
Furthermore, this film does not leave viewers empty-handed. The movie is inspiring, as well as entertaining. If Julie can cook her way to an empowered self-concept, well, any woman can complete the half-finished project she started long ago. If Julie can be a strong woman by conquering the kitchen, well, so can women with and without culinary prowess.
Julie & Julia is a great Sunday afternoon film, and a fun time as well. And, if nothing else, the film will leave your stomach growling and your mouth watering.
Stacy Kess is a registered nurse and a former newspaper reporter.
Filed under: Film
