I am writing this from Menlo Park, CA, where my big sister Ashley is frantically shilling fava beans, icing mini cupcakes, wrapping a wheel of brie in puffed pastry, and in general running around like a crazy bride-to-be prepping for a foodie party to end all parties.
Naturally, as one who rules my own roost, I am feeling a little out-of-sorts. For much as I like to pretend that I am the one who is interested in all things food, someone who will travel all around Salem to put together decent meal for those I love, Ashley is the real queen of the kitchen.
Also, I have no idea where she keeps her vegetable oil.
Take, for example, the meal she had prepared for me when I arrived last Thursday night: Coq a vin with mashed potatoes, which I happily devoured at 11:30 p.m. while sitting on her couch watching Jon Stewart. In our family, you don’t show up without hunger. And in our family, you don’t have anyone arrive at your house without having some kind of slow-cooked meat and vegetable dish simmering on the stove.
Obviously, we were going to see Jule & Julia together. It is the kind of movie that touches our lives on a dozen different levels, most importantly, in the gut. We just didn’t realize we would see it together with a 500-person theater packed so tight we only found seats in the second row.
Is Julie Powell the world’s first blogger to get her life turned into a movie? I really don’t know, but I can say for sure that I hope it never happens to me (make no mistake — I harbor no delusions that a publishing executive in New York City will read my place-based mini-essays on Salem, Oregon and think: High concept book and film project that capitalizes on the foodie craze!).
For a film that has so many charms, so many moments of sheer delight, and so much sexy looking food, Julie & Julia left me feeling a little bit more in love with Julia Child and far less in love with the idea of being a blogger.
By the way… on our car ride to the airport, my husband and I had our requisite taking-separate-flights-if-our-planes-go-down talk.
My last words: “Please oh lord if I die do not let the paper publish an obit about me and say I was a blogger. Sure, say I blogged, but please call me a writer instead!”
His last words: “I hope you make good use of the life insurance policy.”
So, on to Julie & Julia: a film about a government worker who has terrible friends and a saintly husband and whose only respite from her disappointment with herself can be found in the kitchen. She sets out to make all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s cooking Bible Mastering the Art of French Cooking, to do it in 365 days, and to write about it in a blog called The Julie & Julia Project.
Go see it. It’s pretty great. So why did it leave such a bad taste in my mouth?
I can pinpoint the moment in the film when Julie Powell’s character lost most of my empathy (spoiler alert!). It wasn’t when she let her new found popularity in the blogosphere go to her head. It wasn’t when said big head caused a rift in her marriage to an obviously swell and supporting dude.
My a-ha moment occurred finally at the celebratory dinner she held near the film’s end. Julie has finally completed all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and is serving a de-boned duck to a group of friends on a Queens rooftop when she lifts her glass and toasts her husband for supporting her along the way. But instead of coming up with something new to say, she says to him exactly the same words Julia Child’s husband once said in a toast to her.
What… she’s a writer and she can’t even come up with her own toast?
Now, this is likely as much an error in Nora Ephron’s otherwise ebullient screenplay, but it got me thinking. Julie & Julia, the book upon which the movie is based, is essentially structured around a device. It leans on an already established celebrity presence — you could say it humanizes a celebrity crush by exploring the way people mythologize celebrities they will never meet as a way to get through the day. And looking back through the film, there are several hints that would remind us that Julie leans very heavily on Julia — perhaps a little too heavily. The Julie & Julia Project was a perfectly timed cultural force — celebrity crush, foodie obsession, blogging before everyone had a blog. But despite Amy Adams’s charms, Julie Powell comes across as practically histrionic, slightly pathetic and unoriginal.
What would Julie be without Julia?
Well, I can tell you the movie really would have sucked. I sure am glad my blog isn’t based on a celebrity that is far more interesting and lovable than I.
Gotta go — those fava beans are waiting…
I’ve been waiting for this movie to come out. Followed the blog, read the book, am a HUGE Julia Child fan…so off to the movies this evening. (On a side note – I decided to go to the 7:10 showing at approximately 7:12. Hopped in the car, parked, bought my ticket, stopped at the snack bar and was in my seat with the previews still rolling by 7:20. Another of Salem’s charms…) Anyhow, I digress.
While I mostly enjoyed the movie, I found myself mildly bored by and almost indifferent to the Julie sequences. Julia’s life, so rich and full of passion, is such a contrast, and far more engaging. In the book, the imbalance is not so perceptible, since the plot revolves around Julie’s trials and tribulations (most of which were not really touched on in the movie). In the movie, in order to sell it, Julia had to take on a larger role because nobody would have known (or given a hoot) who Julie Powell is. In the end, I left wanting more of the Julia story…I hope this doesn’t preclude an enchanting biopic. (BTW, if you haven’t read “My Life in France,” it’s worth a read.)
I had that same thought — Julia biopic. I pity the actress who has to take that on if it isn’t Meryl Streep. I guess I am thankful to Julie Powell for having made Julia Child relevant to people who don’t know her. I really enjoyed the movie, her whole story arc just pissed me off.