we love her (and meryl streep playing her) too! via rakka @ flickr
This is the third installment of a feature we call “Harpy Cinematical Society,” in which we watch a movie (new or old) en masse and then replicate for you our subsequent discussions about it.
The subject of this discussion is Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. This is a brief Cinematical Society discussion, and we realize that the film has been out for a month, but we still thought it’d be worth it to throw our thoughts into the mix. The film is a dual narrative of the years Julia Child (played by Streep) spent in France, and the attempts of blogger Julie Powell (played by Adams) to cook all of Child’s dishes in one year.
sarah.of.a.lesser.god: This movie almost made me want to learn to cook. Almost. But it did nudge me into buying brie on my way home. The “Julie” section of the movie was far less enjoyable (read: not really enjoyable at all), but all of the Julia Child scenes were more than worth the price of admission. Imagine: a successful Hollywood movie about a successful woman. The film does not define her through her marriage, and it takes only the briefest of moments to allude to the fact that she does not have children. Instead, she is defined by who she is and what she does. Oh, and the filmmakers aren’t squicked out by the fact that she and her husband have sex even though they’re not the standard Hollywood pretty young things. (When’s the last time you saw that in a mainstream summer movie?)
As for the food issue, I was really nervous about that going into the theater because I have my own issues in that area. And I rolled my eyes REALLY HARD when, at one point, Julie Powell (Amy Adams) says she looks fat in a picture, and her friend says “Only your face.” Lots of laughs from the people around me. Oh, ha. Funny. Preying on the weight-based insecurities of people is hysterical. And in what universe is Adams’ face “fat”? It’s not. Which is the point. There’s never a peep from Julia Child’s scenes about weight. Is that a reflection on Child, on the absolute obsession with the weight of modern America (the one Julie lives in). Or is it neither? I may, as usual, be overanalyzing this…
BeckySharper: Ugh, I was so not into the Julie storyline. That part was fairly predictable, and while I love Amy Adams, Julie just seemed so whiny and fussy, and frankly, immature. I couldn’t figure out why her husband put up with her. Although, to be fair, Julie Powell does comes across that way in her memoir as well, so it’s not like Nora Ephron deliberately did her a disservice. I think the whole “fat face” thing was just one in a stack of little illustrative bits meant to show how insecure Julie was…like her relationship with her undermining mom and her lunch with the high-power frenemies, which was overdone to the point of caricature, IMO.
But the Julia part was just so incredibly wonderful. Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci were so magical together. Tucci underplayed that role so well–I just sat back and basked in his admiration/adoration for Julia. I also loved all the sexy bits between them–it made perfect sense both in the context of their blissful, long-lived marriage and in the overall sensuality of their foodie/travel-happy life together. The one very small blip for me was that Julia was in her 30s when she moved to Paris, and Meryl Streep is about 20 years older, so she was portraying Julia as middle-aged when actually, she wasn’t. But it didn’t really matter too much, because she fit the mental image that people have of Julia, which is middle-aged, since that’s when she started appearing on TV.
And I loved the part with Julia and her sister Dorothy. Because it just cemented the idea that you don’t have to be young and beautiful to have devoted, loving husbands.
PhDork:I didn’t see the film (because I have poor reading skills), but really, I just want to see a biopic of Julia Child starring Meryl Streep. “Julia & More Julia.”
BeckySharper: For real. All due respect to Amy Adams and Julie Powell, I would have been perfectly happy with no Julie at all.
sarah.of.a.lesser.god: Agreed. I could have also done without Powell’s husband being portrayed as this perfect, puppy-ish sweetheart. Child’s husband (Tucci) was a far more interesting character. But maybe there should be a sequel — instead of Powell cooking Child’s dishes, we simply have Meryl Streep reading Child’s recipes aloud. You know she could make it compelling, brilliant entertainment!
I’m on a cooking kick this summer, so I really enjoyed it for that reason alone–even the Amy Adams parts (although Meryl Streep’s storyline was much more interesting). It really gives you a sense of food and eating as a source of pleasure, and not something to be afraid of/demonized, which is a breath of fresh air in a movie directed at women. Amy Adams’ character had body issues, yes, but they came across as quite silly when juxtaposed with Julia’s uncomplicated enjoyment of it.
As a vegetarian I was kind of sighing about how meat-centred the menus were–but that’s French cooking for you!
“I could have also done without Powell’s husband being portrayed as this perfect, puppy-ish sweetheart. Child’s husband (Tucci) was a far more interesting character.”
What’s funny is – I think the reason Julia & Paul are more interesting is because they were…well…more interesting. As a result, Ephron was more interested in them, and didn’t do a whole lot to make Julie more interesting or inspiring than she was in her memoir (which is to say, not a lot of either).
I saw this last week and agree that the Julia story was a lot more compelling than the Julie story. I sometimes blog about cooking, so I was expecting to be more into Julie Powell’s story, but it just didn’t do it for me.
I really liked that the personalities of the various female side characters (sister, collaborators, friend) in the Julia story were really developed rather than letting them fall into the usual female cliches present in chick flicks.
I haven’t seen it because I keep hearing how wack the Julie part is. Is it worth seeing in spite of that?
@ceejee: I think so. I mean, the Julie part isn’t unbearable, just a lot less fab than the Julia part. Meryl & Stanley are well worth the price of admission.
@ceejeemcbeegee: SEE IT!! Meryl and Stanley are phenomenal onscreen–so much sexual, sensual and intellectual chemistry sparked between the two of them. I left the movie completely beliving that the two of them should be in every movie ever–that’s how good they were together.
As much as I loved the celebration of food and eating, what made me so happy with this movie was that it was a romantic comedy that wasn’t about silly dating schemes or other tired tropes–and that it did so well in the theaters shows that yes, there IS a market for movies like this–completely refreshing.
I feel all alone in my appreciation of the Julie storyline! No, it wasn’t as good as the Julia story, but I sort of think that was the point Ephron was making – to show the contrast between a woman who would be amazing in any age, and the rest of us, in the here-and-now, who are overly critical, perfectionist, and self-centred. We’re bogged down by ourselves and our narcissism, we make way more mistakes than the perfect Julia ever did, and yet we have the occasional moments of clarity where the real us comes into focus and we make amends and we accept life.
Further to that, I didn’t think Powell’s husband was protrayed as perfect – he himself (in the film) railed against being pegged as “perfect” just because he had a personality that was normally wuite easy to get along with. What I got from the film was that he wanted to be the cranky, stubborn, defensive one sometimes and was resentful that Powell cast him in the hero role.
@bluenose: I think the “bogged down by ourselves and our narcissism” quality you’re talking about may be why people didn’t love the Julie part. Even if we see those qualities in ourselves when we watch the film, well, that still doesn’t make them appealing. I suspect most of us would much rather be like–and spend time with–Julia, who had so much joie de vivre, and didn’t seem to care that she didn’t fit in and wasn’t living the life that society told her to.
we make way more mistakes than the perfect Julia ever did
Except that Julia made mistakes all the time. And she let ‘em roll of her back. Scorch the scallops? Whoops, just scrape that stuff off. Spill a little salt? Just toss some over your shoulder and keep going. Drop the chicken on the floor? Pick it up, rinse it off, and truss it.
That said, I think (even though I haven’t seen the film) you’re right. Someone earlier mentioned the joy/pleasure that Julia and her husband got from their relationship and from food and travel, compared to our modern day couple, who are pinched and clenchy about shit that just really doesn’t matter. We don’t make way more mistakes than Julia; we just make way too big a deal out of them. (And yeah, that’s a kind of narcissism.)
@ BeckySharper and PhDork: Both very apt critiques of my comment.
It was lazy of me to say that Julia didn’t make mistakes – it was her attitude about her mistakes that made the real difference.
For me, the Julia Child part of the film was an exercise in nostalgia. “Who in today’s day and age has the same joie de vivre, innate optimism, charm, and ebullience?” the film kept asking, and the answer was, “no one since Julia!”. Now, the thing needed for successful nostalgia is a sense of contrast, which is what I felt the Julie parts of the film provided in buckets. However, I agree that the Powell section might have been unnecessary, and that maybe the nostalgia would have worked so much better (e.g. been more of an escape) if the Powell storyline wasn’t hanging around like a wet blanket.
I personally loved the structure of the film: it was wonderfully inter-texual. I mean, think about it: it was a film, about a memoir, about a blog, written in response to a cookbook, with flashbacks!
And as a struggling blogger, I was just impressed that Julia (real and fiction) was able to both cook and blog consistently, every day!
But I do agree with the general consensus: the Julia Child sections were especially brilliant; I loved seeing a strong woman portrayed in a nuanced and funny way. Although the Julie Powell character may not have been as ‘strong’ (which may be why some of us don’t like her- we don’t admire her like we do Julia/Meryll), she was relateable as a downtrodden modern gal.
As a whole, I thought the film was… delicious.
God! I loved this movie!
So many movies with female characters are about finding a man and then living happily ever after, I thought it was very refreshing that both Julie and Julia were married to good guys but they weren’t “complete.” They were looking for something else, and found it themselves . . . with a little help from their friends, etc.
Also, Julia’s childlessness was lovingly handled and heartwrenching.