Meryl Streep Brilliantly Captures the Essence of Julia Child
Written and directed by Nora Ephron, Julie & Julia (2009) is a feel-good movie that features a great performance by Meryl Streep as Julia Child (1912-2004), who co-authored Mastering the Art of French Cooking and did the TV show The French Chef. Because of Julia, millions of Americans lost their fear of dishes like boeuf bourguignon and sole meunière.
The film tells Julia's story from 1949 to 1961, when she was an unknown struggling to develop her seminal cookbook and get it published. Streep evokes Julia's idiosyncratic speaking voice and body language, and Julia's almost freakish height (6'2") is convincingly depicted. The phrases that leap to mind in describing the movie's version of Julia are "force of life" and "joie de vivre."
But only roughly half the film is about Julia, the rest being about a real-life Queens woman named Julie Powell (Amy Adams), who around 2003 spent a year cooking all 524 recipes in Julia's cookbook and blogging about it on the Internet. The movie's version of Julie comes across as awfully self-centered, and her half of the story is not nearly as engaging or entertaining as Julia's half.
However, the contrast between Julie's story and that of Julia makes Julie & Julia much stronger than either story could be by itself. Ephron has made an unusual film here about how something one person did in the past can inspire someone else decades later. For maximum enjoyment, it's perhaps best to think of Julie as a real-life, modern-day person, while Julia is a legendary, larger-than-life figure from times gone by.
An Informative Audio Commentary and a Fairly Good Making-Of
If you like Julie & Julia, be sure to catch writer-director Nora Ephron's feature-length audio commentary. She identifies the locations where they filmed in Paris and New York, and she talks a little about choosing the music, including the Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer" and Margaret Whiting's "Time After Time." She says she directed the actors to take big bites when eating and to go ahead and talk with food in their mouth. Ephron has cooked many of the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but she says she would prefer the section on aspics be deleted from future editions. She also claims the stuffed duck in a pastry crust shown near the end of the movie isn't all that tasty.
In addition, the Julie & Julia DVD provides a 28-minute making-of documentary that's not bad. Streep and Adams, as well as supporting actors Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina and Jane Lynch, talk about the film. You will also see and hear from the real-life Julie Powell, who developed her blog into a book with the same title as the movie. Another contributor is Alex Prud'homme, Julia Child's grandnephew and co-author with her of a memoir titled My Life in France, which served as source material for the film.
DVD Details
Below I have listed all the details for the DVD containing Julie & Julia.
Release Date: December 8, 2009
Feature Film Runtime: 2 hours 3 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for Brief Strong Language and Some Sensuality
Aspect Ratio 1.85:1, Color
English 5.1 Dolby Digital
French 5.1 Dolby Digital
English Audio Description Track
English Captions for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
French Subtitles
Audio Commentary by Writer-Director Nora Ephron
Secret Ingredients: Creating Julie & Julia (28 min.)