Shannon Keough“Julie and Julia” is the story of two lost souls finding out what life’s meaning is all about. The film itself is taken from blogger and author Julie Powell’s blogging memoir “Julie & Julia,” and Julia Child’s posthumous biography.
For Powell, it’s as simple as sticking to one goal just once in her life. Powell decides to prepare all 524 of the often daunting recipes in Child’s cookbook, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and blog about it. Child’s aspect of the film is about her time spent in France, where she realized her passion for cooking.
Immediately, the moviegoer is enthralled in the action of the film, feeling real emotions for each woman as they go through trials and tribulations of their lives. Almost any college student could relate to the feeling of “What do I do next?” that each woman so bravely faced and met head on.
I’d like to say this is a story of the hero and the villain, but it is not. It’s more so the story of the idol and the devotee. Powell has a depressing and exasperating non-profit job helping 9/11 victims with compensation, whereas Child is living abroad in the 1940s Paris trying to figure out what to do with her life, while her husband serves as a diplomat. It’s just two women trying to find their way in life.
But the actors are what really brings this film to life Meryl Streep is Child and Amy Adams is Powell in writer-director Nora Ephron’s adaptation of two bestselling memoirs, as mentioned previously.
The film alternates between Child’s story and Powell’s but it does so seamlessly. Taking pieces from each woman’s life and melding them together, the moviegoer feels as if they are a fly on the wall in each woman’s kitchen.
The viewer can laugh and cry and what is most heart wrenching as you grow with the characters is to know that it’s not just fiction, but reality with a touch of movie magic.
But, along with those emotions comes a very important underlying lesson of the film: Do what you want to do.
At the beginning of the film Child’s husband asks her: What is it you really like to do? Child responded: Eat! It’s as if Ephron directed this movie to not only tell a story but to inspire the viewers.
Now, go ahead and ask yourself what do you really like to do? If anyone takes anything away from the film it would have to be that if you are unhappy, make a change, just like Child and Powell.
With brilliant settings and colorful language, intoxicating food and a dash of historical context, Julie and Julia is sure to please even the unassuming date on movie night. But what stands out is not the importance of food in each woman’s life, but that of unifying dinner parties and friendships.
