Here's a review from our friend 'Grave Robber':
Julie & Julia is the chick flick of the summer. Directed by a usually-mediocre Nora Ephron, this movie is surprisingly better than her latest efforts. But that is not saying much, as the movie runs 125 minutes, but feels well over 3 hours long...
Here's the story of Julie Powell, a twenty-nine year old happily married woman with a job that depresses her. Her so-called friends don't help much as they either glamorize their successes aloud to the point Julie feels like a pure nobody next to them, otherwise use her as part of their success. She has written few unpublished books and claims she is horrible at writing. This is where her husband Eric, played by Chris Messina, convinces her that she is a great writer and should start up a blog. As she thinks about what to write next, food comes up to her mind. She decides she has 365 days to learn the entire recipe-book of her idol Julia Child.
Throughout the movie, the story jumps back and forth to Julie's blogging, and Julia's road to success. Julia is a determined and fearless woman, who has a fantastic husband that would do just about anything for her. They are living in Paris for the next four years, as Paul, Julia's husband, has an assignment to finish. But Julia is jobless, and she doesn't want to be like every other french woman, living in Paris, as a housewife. Instead, she decides to become a cook, where people doubt her skills. Nothing stopped Julia from becoming the woman she became, because she didn't let it happen.
Focusing on Julie's pre-midlife crisis and Julia's road to success, the movie runs far too much longer than it should. Julia's story is the essence and the backbone to this movie. That part alone could have stood on its own. But instead, Nora Ephron decided it was best to have included Julie Powell's story, as told in the book Julie & Julia. The result for Julie's story is a bland and unbalanced mix of past-cliches, and what a bore it was for the most part. Without Adams and the whole hoopaloo of characters on her side, the movie would have been far more solid, and better paced.
The leads, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, share almost equal amount of time on their parts. While Amy Adams was nothing special but a filler, like all other supporting actors on her part of the story, Streep has once again proven that she can steal any scene and make the movie her own. Stanley Tucci, playing Child's husband, is also a scene-stealer and one hilarious supporting actor. What a joy it was to see Streep and Tucci dominate the screen together. Jane Lynch, who plays Child's sister, plays in a few unforgettable hilarious scenes in the limited amount of time she has.
Though the movie may be hard to sit through for the entire 125 minutes of runtime, it is never truly unsatisfying to the point we want to stand up and walk out. While it could have trimmed a lot (maybe even just cut out the entire Julie Powell story), thank god for Streep and her wonderful impersonation of Julia Child, and the supporting roles in that part. This movie screams out chick-flick from the very start of the movie. Which man would honestly go out and watch a cooking movie, unless it's animated (Ratatouille)?
The only real off-putting detail of this movie that will leave many wonder what happens next is when [spoilers]Julie Powell finds out that Julia Child isn't impressed by her, and is not a fan of her blog.[/spoilers] There seems to be no answer or clear explanation to why it is what is said, but then again it kills the entire structure in a way the movie was forced to be built upon.
Few scenes will have people jumping out of the seats in complete laughter, like the one where a Julia Child impersonator "cuts" his own hand and pretends to cook and talk on screen as if nothing, as blood spurts out everywhere, or when Julia's sister Dorothy marries a man two heads shorter than her. The movie is ultimately a mixed bag, who fortunately, delivers more good than bad.
PS: Wait before the credits start rolling, after some text is translated on screen, where an obvious statement is written on screen: "The book successfully became a movie." Well no shit it did, unless what the *beep* did I see for the past 2 hours? 7/10
(Review sent by 'Grave Robber'.)
