Nearly every review I’ve read of this movie has had the same primary criticism: the story and acting are uneven, and the Meryl Streep half of the movie is markedly better. This is fair enough, I suppose. Streep, as usual, throws herself into the role, and her jouissance is contagious. While I initially thought her rendition of Julia Child’s characteristic speech patterns would grow annoying fast, I found myself delighting in her playful interpretation on the iconic chef.
I take issue, however, with reviewers who lambast the Amy Adams portions of the film. Not because I thought Adams brought as much to her role as Streep did—I’m not yet a convert to the charms of Adams, who many in the blogosphere seem to have decided is The Next Big Thing. Rather, the criticisms I’ve seen regarding those sections of the movie focused on the character of Julie Powell, dismissing her as irritatingly narcissistic. This view seems to stem from two main points of criticism: that the project itself (Julie’s endeavor to cook all of the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year) involves a certain degree of egomania and that Julie becomes so swept up in it that she (a) neglects her husband and (b) becomes desperate for attention from her blog readers. I’ll admit that my view of the Julie Powell the film character may be colored by my view of Julie Powell the author, as I read her book before seeing the movie. The book, of course, provides a much fuller account of the circumstances that led Powell to begin the project (working a dead-end secretarial job for a government agency in charge of designing the building that would replace the World Trade Center). Additionally, when I read the book/watched the movie, I was also in the throes of professional ennui. Perhaps this made me even more sympathetic to Powell’s character. At any rate, I didn’t find the character as portrayed by Adams annoyingly self-centered in the least. Furthermore, I’m a bit disturbed by the tendency of reviewers to criticize Powell herself rather than Adams’ performance or the way her scenes are filmed. What exactly is so narcissistic about a woman who is unhappy with her life searching for a project to spark her creativity and passion? It seems that Powell has been deemed solipsistic simply for taking up a hobby. But wait… it’s a hobby that doesn’t revolve around her job, her husband, or having children. Shame on you, Julie, for doing something just for yourself. Narcissist, indeed.
My rant about these unfair criticisms aside, Julie & Julia is far from a great film. It is rather shallow in nearly every way imaginable: the characters are mostly caricatures presented amidst a flat and uninteresting mise-en-scene. Nevertheless, it was a good bit of simple fun.
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