Julie & Julia (2009)Director: Norah Ephron
I'm fast running out of time to get things seen before the Oscars on Monday. Of the main categories, one that I'm still note sure about is the Best Actress. I watched Sandra Bullock's performance in The Blind Side yesterday, and today decided to check out the other main contender, Merryl Streep, in Julie & Julia.
Julie & Julia is based, as the film states, on two true stories. Set in the 1940s and 1950s we have the story of famous American celebrity cook Julia Child (Streep). Julia moves to France with her diplomat husband, Paul (Tucci). Keen to find something to fill her vast amounts of free time Julia takes up cooking lessons and soon becomes obsessed with the notion of teaching Americans French cooking. The film then follows her painstaking efforts to write and publish what would eventually become her famous book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Then, in 2002, we have the story of Julie Powell (Adams), a frustrated wannabe novelist, who sets herself the task of cooking her way through every recipe in Julia's cookbook in one year, all the while blogging her progress. As her blog becomes more and more popular, this personal challenge, initially intended as a release from the emotionally draining nature of her work, becomes an obsession which overtakes her life.
Streep's performance turns what would have otherwise been a fairly run-of-the-mill film into something a bit more notable. Coming into this film I had no knowledge at all of Julia Child. So after watching Streep give this strange, comical, almost over-the-top performance the first thing I did was jump on to Youtube and look up some clips. Turns out what Streep was giving was a pretty damn good Julia Child impersonation. Even now though, I'm not sure where I sit with this performance. While she was very engaging and entertaining to watch, I didn't feel that Streep's Julia was nearly as human and relatable as Adam's Julie, even if she was a bit more interesting. Rather, I had this uncomfortable feeling that they had just taken Julia Child's on-screen persona (she had a famous cooking show called The French Chef) and just assumed that she was like that all the time. Like I said, I have zero background knowledge of Julia Child, so maybe I'm way off the mark and the fact that Streep is getting such rave reviews suggests there is a level to her performance that I am not appreciating.
The structure of the film, jumping back and forth between the stories of Julie and Julia didn't quite work as well as Ephron had probably hoped. There aren't all that many parallels between the two stories, meaning that there weren't really natural points at which to make those transitions back and forth. The story jumps rather than flows. It also doesn't help that on the one hand you have a very engaging character in Julia who is stuck in what is largely an uninteresting story, and on the other you have a more slightly more interesting story centred around a more neurotic and less lovable character. Also, the fact that the two never met in real life means that there is no one moment which connects the two stories to provide any sort of closure to the film, rather they remain totally separate.
On a personal level I found the blogging elements of the story interesting. Having undertaken this project of blogging my way through my film watching, I was interested to watch the story of someone doing a similar thing, even if hers was somewhat more intense (524 recipes in 365 days). I related to the feeling of uncertainty about just throwing stuff up on the Internet and not really knowing if people are engaging with it (Though I do have a counter on my site which lets me know that some people are visiting. Thanks guys!), and also to the way in which something that you start up intending for it to be just a bit of fun, a form of relaxation, can at times become more of a burden, but I guess that can relate to a lot of things.
So Julie & Julia is nothing earth shattering. Nora Ephron is a chick flick specialist (Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail), and doesn't seem to have been able to push this film beyond that realm, but in this instance she is aided by a very talented cast who give the film just that little bit extra. In terms of who will win the Best Actress Oscar, I'm still inclined to go with Sandra Bullock. I think Sandra Bullock gave a very good performance which a lot of people did not think she was capable of. It was her best work. Merryl Streep's performances, however, are measured against a slightly loftier standard. She is, after all, one of the true titans of the American cinema. As engaging and entertaining as she is in this film, I don't think it is one of the best things she's ever done and I therefore think the Academy is more inclined to reward Bullock. But at the same time, they do love Merryl Streep, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if she did win.
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