Good Food, Good Marriage, Good Cinema

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Julia and Julia (2009)

Directed by Nora Ephron. Starring Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, and Amy Adams.

By Liz Foeckler

“You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces—just good food from fresh ingredients.”

I think this famous quote from Julia Child is equally applicable to good films. You don’t need fancy CGI or complicated sets or tech, just a good story and good talent. This movie is a lovely example of that. I recently had an evening to myself, and as I am finishing reading Julia Child’s autobiography, My Life in France, I thought I’d give the 2009 film Julie and Julia a taste. The movie is based on both Child’s book, as well as writer Julie Powell’s experience of making every recipe in Child’s cookbook, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” over the course of a year.

On paper, it sounds like it could be a very messy production, if executed poorly. I was delighted to discover however, that the film was positively delightful, and wove the stories of both women together in a very fluid, believable way– particularly considering that their stories operate on two separate timelines (though their lives did overlap). Further, I was pleased that the film did an excellent job of telescoping the “main events” of Child’s book into her portions of the film. I found the book to be a bit all over the place, with significant portions feeling a bit pointless to recount– like a dish with too many competing ingredients. The movie however, “trimmed the fat” to what I felt like was the perfect amount, while still feeling very much like Julia Child’s story.