Half Baked
by Iñigo C. Pieraz on October 31, 2009
Watching Julie and Julia is like eating a chocolate souffle that failed to rise. The end result is far from being a total, resounding success. It is, however, still a sweet, delicious treat that will leave you grinning from ear to ear.
Julie and Julia tells the true story of two food-obssessed women living in different eras. It is 2002, and Julie Powell (Amy Adams, Doubt), a native New Yorker, is a young wife looking to find some purpose in her life. On a whim, she decides to test out all the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the landmark cookbook authored by the celebrated chef Julia Child some forty years before.
As a novice cook, Julie also decides to keep track of her recipes—both the ones that failed and the ones that succeeded—via an online blog. Testing out these recipes proves harder than she originally thought, as she encounters problems not just in the kitchen, but also in her marriage.
Meanwhile, in the 1950s, Julia Child (Meryl Streep, Doubt) is a woman with a unique voice and an undeniable zest for life. After working for the American government during World War II, Julia and her diplomat husband Paul (Stanley Tucci, The Devil Wears Prada) find themselves living in pictureque Paris, the world’s gourmet capital.
She decides to enroll in the Cordon Bleu, a French cooking insitutute dominated by angry, chauvinistic male chefs. This is there where she discovers a real talent for cooking. Eventually, she finds herself authoring a cookbook and hosting the first cooking show on television—events that would change the way Americans eat and dine.
The not-so-secret ingredient that makes Julie and Julia such a tasty treat is the uniformly excellent cast. Stanley Tucci gives a charming performance as Paul Child. His chemistry with Streep is so palpable that it’s difficult to take your eyes off of them. One striking scene at a dinner party, when Paul recounts how he first fell in love with Julia, is so romantic that it becomes clear why it is so easy to get lost in their love story.
Amy Adams, most known for playing wide-eyed, innocent characters, gives Julie Powell a sense of feminine strength—certainly a far cry from previous characters she has portrayed. It doesn’t rank among one of her best, but it’s a solid performance nonetheless.
And in a short but memorable performance, Jane Lynch (Fox’s Glee) plays the role of Dorothy, Julia’s equally-tall, equally-passionate older sister. She gives Dorothy so much life and vivacity that she practically steals every scene she’s in.
The film, however, belongs to the magnificent Meryl Streep. It’s a performance that is as complex as one of Child’s recipes–but Streep makes it look effortless. Any good technical actor can nail Julia Child’s unmistakable mannerisms: the high-pitched voice, the awkward, gawky stance, and the heavy, laborious breathing. Streep nails every one of these mannerisms, so much so that you quickly forget you are watching the performance of a famous actress.
But it is Streep’s performance beyond the Julia Child caricature that truly astounds. Her flawless comedic and dramatic skills are on full display here. Without missing a beat, she knocks every comedic line out of the park. Her dramatic scenes are always powerful, but never overly acted. Streep’s performance is a tour-de-force that easily ranks as one of the most memorable on-screen performances of any actor in recent years.
Writer-director Nora Ephron (Bewitched) does a passable job of balancing the stories of the two women. Still, it is in this dual structure by which the film runs into its problems. While the Julia Child half of the film has charm to spare, the half of Julie Powell hardly holds up. It lacks any real drama, any real sense of conflict that it becomes difficult to get invested in her story. Any conflict that it has feels forced–as if Ephron is trying to squeeze out drama from a story where there really is none.
There’s a great—and maybe even brilliant—movie lurking somewhere beneath Julie and Julia. Occassionally, we get flashes of this brilliance, most especially when Streep and Tucci fill the screen. Unfortunately, the more we see of Julia, the less we want to see of Julie. Considering the film gives equal importance to Julie Powell and Julia Child, this is a real problem indeed.
Still, the film works on many levels. Anchored by Streep’s unforgettable performance, this is a film that unabashedly wallows in its frivolous and exuberant nature. Julie and Julia is a light film with a murky narrative that runs mostly on empty calories–but don’t be surprised if it eventually leaves you hungry for more.
Julie and Julia opens October 8, 2009 in theaters nationwide.
