Julie and Julia

Julie and Julia is a geek movie.  Yes on the surface it looks like an odd chick flick about cooking with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, but it's really about a couple of women getting their geek on.  Julie Powell (Adams) is a young aspiring writer who, to add a spark to her somewhat drab life, starts a blog before many people even knew what a blog was.  It wasn't just a ramble blog though, it was a blog documenting the progress of an outrageous goal, giving her readers ever succulent detail.  And that blog became a book and then became the movie I am now reviewing.  Is this the first blog to become a movie? I think so.  Just because the topic was cooking doesn't make it any less geeky.  The other half of the movie is Julia Child (Streep).  You don't get more of a food geek than that.

The movie introduces us to both Julie and Julia in different times as one begins to document her endeavor to cook all 524 recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, during the course of one year and the other begins the equally daunting task of writing the aforementioned volume that made her famous.

Sometime in the 1950's, while living in Paris with her husband (Stanley Tucci) who works for the US government, Julia decides to take advantage of the situation and really learn how to cook the food she loves so much.  What starts as an interest becomes her passion, leading her to become the woman everyone remembers.

In 2002, living in New York, Julie works answering calls from 9/11 victims' families.  Wanting to add something more pleasant to her life, she decides to cook through Julia Child's book.  Her reasoning being that the one thing that is certain is cooking.  What begins as a hobby and writing exercise grows into an obsession - one that sometimes stresses out her husband (Chris Messina) and leads to her writing perhaps the most read blog of the time.

Do we see any parallels here? Yes we do.

I'm personally am not that familiar with Julia Child, but I hear Meryl Streep portrays her to a T and I believe it.  She's fantastic as the towering, exuberant woman.  Her voice is a bit distracting, but what can you do about that since it's spot on with Child's?

I don't know what Julie Powell is like, but reading a bit of her original blog, I can imagine the words being spoken by Adams perfectly, so that's a good thing.  (Her current blog can be found here).

It may be a somewhat odd topic for a movie, but it works.  My only complaint would be the ending.  It just seems a bit too abrupt.  I would have love to see just a bit more beyond what happened when the book was published/the blog was finished.  Other than that, though, I thought it was mostly enjoyable, if it did make me a bit hungry watching it.

**** (4/5 stars)