Julie and Julia

After having this movie recommended to me several times, I finally sat down to watch Julie and Julia.

I loved all of the scenes with Meryl Streep; she definitely deserved the Oscar nomination for this role. She is lovable and dynamic. Julia Child’s relationship with her husband is such a pleasure to watch. Their love, playfulness, and authenticity are rarely seen in screen marriages. The film tells the story of the rise of Julia Child and how a woman finds her true calling and passion in life. This side of the movie, I really liked.

The other part of the movie tells the story of modern day Julie who sets a goal for herself in order to give her life meaning and achieve a sense of success. There is a fabulous scene when Julie is having lunch with her corporate career friends. Their snobbiness and material definition of success is disgusting. At that moment, I sympathized with Julie. But as her story develops, Julie becomes obsessed with this somewhat arbitrary goal of cooking through Julia Child’s cookbook in one year makes her narcissistic and her idolatry of Julia Child annoying. Her sweet husband puts up with a lot, and I am not sure that she ever truly realizes how blessed she is. I love Amy Adams but not Julie.

I give Julie and Julia a 6. The scenes with Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci were enjoyable, but the rest of the movie was lacking.