Movie Review: Julie & Julia

Julie & Julia is movie that follows a woman, Julie, who finds herself unsatisfied with her life and seeks a journey of self discovery by cooking her way through the cook book of her cooking idol, Julia. Julia decides to document it in a blog, cooking every one of Julia's 500+ recipes in the span of one year. The movie parallels the two characters, showing Julia's early cooking career alongside Julie's year long endeavor. While enjoyable, I would say that this movie is largely a mediocre with the saving grace of Meryl Streep playing Julia Childs. It has funny moments, some memorable lines, but the overall product (though by no fault of Amy Adams or Chris Messina) is pretty forgettable.

The plot line the movie seems to try to focus on Julie cook/blogging her way through Julia's recipies, never seems to escalate it's conflict beyond the same baseline of angst. Challenges arise, but are quickly answered and forgotten; it gets a little redundant and the end of the movie more or less happens without any real palpable climax. As mentioned before, Meryl Streep (and for that matter, also her opposite Stanley Tucci) does an amazing job in her role. Playing the always upbeat, although socially quirky, Julia Childs she became the sole factor that propelled my interest in this movie. The chemistry between her character and Stanley Tucci's character is endearing and becomes the only reason to watch this movie. I wish the movie had focused more on her and used Julie as more of a framing device than a paralell plot line.

Even if half of the movie is basically forgettable and dragging, the Julia Childs plot line saves it and gets this movie 3 out of 5 movie ferrets!