Actor Spotlight: Julie and Julia

In this delightful film based on the book, Julie and Julia, we follow the lives of two women: French-American culinary icon Julia Child (beautifully played by Meryl Streep), and Julia (played by Amy Adams), who is a young, married woman at a dead-end government job. The film goes back and forth between the two parallel lives of these two women who live during different times. We see how both Julie and Julia’s lives run parallel to each other with how they are bored and wanted to try something new after moving. Julia Child takes up a few hobbies while her husband works for the US government in Paris. She ends up taking a hobby cooking class, and wants to learn more than basics, and ends up graduating from Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, and writes the first French cookbook in English. Julie Powell takes on the extraordinary task of cooking through Julia Child’s entire cookbook and documenting her results on her blog. Julie’s cooking challenge begins with an idea to make a chocolate cream pie. Julie’s marriage gets strained when the recipes get harder.

In addition, Stanley Tucci wonderfully plays Julia Child’s husband and Chris Messina plays Julie’s husband.  Jane Lynch plays Dorothy, Julia’s sister.  Meryl Streep does a fantastic job nailing Julia’s mannerisms, accents, and appearance. I can see why Meryl was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Julia child.

The film is a wonderful date-night movie, or even for a girls’ night. Usually, I’m more of a horror-film fan, but this is a nice diversion from blood and gore, even if I have to endure the sight of 3 lobsters meeting their demise in a large pot of boiling water. It is a refreshingly light, funny, and charismatic movie. Don’t be afraid to rewind in the part where Meryl Streep quotes a very funny, and crude quote from Julia’s memoirs. It truly is a shocking yet hilarious scene.  Especially from someone in restricted, man-based, and proper 1940′s. It is a great movie to watch after a very delicious meal (preferably from Julia’s cookbook) and a nice glass of wine.

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