Review: Julie & Julia (Girl next door makes good)

Sometimes I feel a lot like Julie Powell (Amy Adams). She’s a girl-next-door type who’s just trying to get by in the world, but coming up against roadblocks at every turn. Ok, I like my job a lot better than she likes hers, but I can certainly see where she’s coming from. We all need something to get us through the tough times, something that’s ours and ours alone, something to make us get up in the morning and keep fighting the good fight.

For Julie, that something is a blog. Ok, I identify with that, too, since I write several blogs and teach an online blogging class, to boot. Julie’s blog is very focused and even has a deadline. She realizes that the one thing she loves to do after a hard day in her cubicle dealing with people who want to talk to someone in power (of which she has none), is come home and cook. Thus, she decides to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Childs’ cookbook, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."

Based on a true story and a real book, "Julie & Julia" follows Julie Powell’s life as she takes on this noble task. She feels like Julia Child is in the kitchen with her, helping her to get through all the recipes, bolstering her during the kitchen disasters, and cheering her on – even through the horrible tasks of boning a duck and cooking live lobsters.

The fact is, that Julia Child (Meryl Streep) doesn’t even know about Julie Powell. But as the film follows Julie’s life, it’s also following the parallel life of Julia Child, based on her real-life book, "My Life in France," co-written with her nephew Alex Prud’homme.

The way these two lives intertwine — even though they’re decades apart and on opposite sides of the planet — is amazing. Like Julie Powell, Julia Child endured all sorts of problems, too. After moving to France with her loving husband, Paul (Stanley Tucci), she learns how to speak French (enough to get by), figures out what she wants to do with herself (hint: it’s not making hats or playing bridge), decides to take cooking classes at the Cordon Bleu (the only female student), and falls in with two other women writing a cookbook. She does it all with grace, determination and fearlessness, even when all the odds are stacked against her.

And so also goes the life of Julie Powell. She’s working at a dead-end secretarial job in New York City, living in a tiny apartment in Queens, and feeling like she’s going nowhere as she turns 30. Her one saving grace is her "saint" of a husband, Eric (Chris Messina) — although he finally says he’s "not a saint," because part-way through the project he wishes it would all go away.

Along with the husbands, we get to meet Julia’s sister, Dorothy (Jane Lynch), Julie’s no-nonsense friend, Sarah (Mary Lynn Rajskub), and assorted other friends and coworkers.

Along with a great story, the remarkable talents of Meryl Streep and Amy Adams really shine through here. Great casting on both counts, and you feel like you really know these characters by the end of the movie. I wish it would have continued so we could see where their stories went from there.

This movie also gives you hope and inspiration that good things do happen if you keep persevering and believing in yourself, even when you just don’t feel like it.

Note to Parents: A few scenes show married couples falling into bed together. Language includes "bitch," "f*ck" (used only once), "ass," "crap," "sh*t," and the phrase, "…it’s as stiff as a hot cock," referring to a food item. That said, it’s not nearly as adult-oriented as some PG-13 movies, which is why I think it’s ok for kids 13 and older who love stories about cooking, being fearless, and persevering against the odds.

Images: Sony Pictures Entertainment