Julie Powell (Amy Adams) is a writer who can't finish anything. She's started her novel and only got half way through before giving up on it, and works in post 9/11 New York taking phone calls from people reeling from the tragedy. Julia Child (Meryl Streep) is a newlywed living in post-war France with her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) who works for the American Embassy. Julia is looking for something to give her life meaning she tries hat making, and bridge and loses interest in those fairly quickly. When she enters Le Cordon Bleu school of cooking she finds her passion in life.
Julie and Julia is really two stories that run concurrently and mirror each other. When Adam's Julie decides to challenge herself to cook her way through Julia Child's famous book The Art of French Cooking she encounters obstacles and victories she might not have anticipated when taking on the project. Child's story is about how she overcame the obstacles of being an ambitious American in France after WWII. Learned how to cook and the struggle of writing and getting her book published. Both Julie's and Julia's stories are also love stories, each has a husband that is supportive to greater or lesser degrees. Tucci's Paul Child is unflaggingly supportive of his wife, and also very much in love with her. I grew up seeing Julia Childs cooking show on TV and she always struck me as being asexual, but for those who harbor similar opinions this movie will that idea to rest. Julie and her husband Eric (Chris Messing) have a more modern relationship, and while Eric is supportive at times Julie's "meltdowns" get to him and they have arguments and he's not sure if he can take her mood swings.
Streep is great as Julia Child, she has her character down pat and injects a lot of life and humor into Child. Stanley Tucci as Paul Child almost steals the show from Streep, he's madly love with Julia and he has almost as many good lines as Streep. Amy Adams is good as Julie Powell. Adams'Powell is very cute and not as confident as Child in the cooking, and has some very funny scenes. The scene where she has to cook live lobsters and she feels very guilty about it while the Talking Heads song Psycho Killer plays is hilarious. I somewhat enjoyed the Child/Streep story a little more, but that's just degrees, it may be the French setting and time seem more intriguing than Powell's/Adams contemporary setting. I would also like to mention Mary Lynn Rajskub's role as Julie's friend is an above average performance and caught my attention, it's a little more than your standard sidekick/friend role.
Julie and Julia is really two stories that run concurrently and mirror each other. When Adam's Julie decides to challenge herself to cook her way through Julia Child's famous book The Art of French Cooking she encounters obstacles and victories she might not have anticipated when taking on the project. Child's story is about how she overcame the obstacles of being an ambitious American in France after WWII. Learned how to cook and the struggle of writing and getting her book published. Both Julie's and Julia's stories are also love stories, each has a husband that is supportive to greater or lesser degrees. Tucci's Paul Child is unflaggingly supportive of his wife, and also very much in love with her. I grew up seeing Julia Childs cooking show on TV and she always struck me as being asexual, but for those who harbor similar opinions this movie will that idea to rest. Julie and her husband Eric (Chris Messing) have a more modern relationship, and while Eric is supportive at times Julie's "meltdowns" get to him and they have arguments and he's not sure if he can take her mood swings.
Streep is great as Julia Child, she has her character down pat and injects a lot of life and humor into Child. Stanley Tucci as Paul Child almost steals the show from Streep, he's madly love with Julia and he has almost as many good lines as Streep. Amy Adams is good as Julie Powell. Adams'Powell is very cute and not as confident as Child in the cooking, and has some very funny scenes. The scene where she has to cook live lobsters and she feels very guilty about it while the Talking Heads song Psycho Killer plays is hilarious. I somewhat enjoyed the Child/Streep story a little more, but that's just degrees, it may be the French setting and time seem more intriguing than Powell's/Adams contemporary setting. I would also like to mention Mary Lynn Rajskub's role as Julie's friend is an above average performance and caught my attention, it's a little more than your standard sidekick/friend role.