My two favorite things are probably food and movies. Also being a sucker for animated movies means that watching Ratatouille is basically 2 hours of bliss for me. I was also understandably quite excited about Julie and Julia. Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and Stanley Tucci are all both extremely talented and fun to watch on screen. Given the obvious food connection, it seemed like a great excuse for me to do some movie-related blogging. Last week I was perusing my usual rotation of movie blogs when I found a post on www.cinematical.com giving away tickets to an early screening of the movie the Monday before it opened. I jumped on it, won one of the pair of tickets and was off to the movie.

Overall the movie was an admittedly enjoyable one-trick pony that just went on a touch too long. It was by no means bad, and I quite enjoyed it, but it was far from great. Half of the movie tracks Meryl Streep as Julia Childs learning to love, cook, and eventually write about French food while struggling with snooty French professors, unconvinced publishers and Joseph McCarthy of all things. The other half follows Amy Adams as Julie Powell, a former-aspiring writer who has had enough of her cubicle job and unclear track so decides to cook and blog her way through Julia Childs cookbook. Both story lines are enjoyable enough, but far from having much depth, which is ultimately part of the issue.

By the fourth or fifth time one of Julie or Julia faced a setback and then had a determined conversation with her husband, friends, or self to keep at it, I was fairly ready for the movie to be over. The only real flaw I found with the movie (and it was somewhat sizable) was the full two hour run time and occasionally slow and repetitive pacing. Part of the problem was certainly that it was essentially two separate films, with Adams and Streep never appearing on screen together. This turend the final act  into final acts, as we had to wait for two (already known) stories to rap up. Voila moments of completed recipes or comedic deliveries from Streep or Tucci easily carried the movie through the first ninety minutes but couldn’t finish the rest of the way.

That being said, the first ninety minutes are quite enjoyable, especially as a foodie. Streep does a great job of embodying Childs without being over the top at all. Even lines which to me had become familiar from the trailers had the audience cracking up at Streep’s Childs. Her struggle through Le Cordon Bleu was certainly enjoyable as she practices chopping piles of onions at home and standing up to the male students. On the other side, Adams superbly pulls off a frustrated, tired New York cubicle worker (I may even know from experience). Her character definitely delivers less humor than Streep’s but instead we’re left to identify with her as she builds confidence in her cooking and self. While unfortunately hinted at in the trailers, Adams does have several excellent scenes including her tribulations with needing to “murder” a lobster.

From a food perspective, the movie was really pretty great. Almost right from the start, you’re inundated with process and outcome of some really fantastic looking dishes. Maybe tops of the list for me was early on in the film, Julie, before starting the blog, makes bruschetta. After they showed bread toasting in a pan of butter and the colorful combination of tomatoes, you could sense the audience’s jealously of Julie’s husband, who was thoroughly enjoying them on screen. Beyond just shooting food well, it did a really good job of capturing some important steps in the cooking process. In the process of making a beef bourguignon, Julie adds a splash of red wine, which instantly steams and she closes her eyes to take in the seemingly amazing aroma.

Julie & Julia was certainly a fun movie. I enjoyed it. I recommend it. But as someone who watches a lot of movies more than once, I think I’d have a bit of tough time watching this again some time soon.

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