Julia, yes... Julie, not so much

We saw Julie and Julia last night.

Dinner was great, at a place called the Blue Plate...

[if I'm talking about dinner, what do you think my feeling as to the movie?]

It was a more-than-sold-out show... and the crowd was... OLD. I mean, really old.

OK, so... the movie...

For those who don't know, Julie and Julia is based on two true stories: the first of Julia Child (think of her as Rachel Ray before there was a Food Network... though I think she may have been closer to Alton Brown). The second is the story of Julia Powell, a temp worker in New York, who in 2002 set forth on the daunting prospect of cooking every one of over 500 recipes in Child's cookbook tome, Mastering the Art of French Cooking over the course of a single year... and to blog about her experiences.

If that mission sounds familiar, it's because I based the Bill / Shakespeare Project partly on it: for us, 36 plays in 36 months... I didn't want to rush to read all the plays in one year because I wanted to talk about each in depth.

Now, Julie's blog was turned into a book, and now this movie, or well, half this movie.

And at this point, I've got to warn you... I'm going to be spoiling the movie... so SPOILER ALERT.







So: SPOILER ALERT... you've been warned.







So the movie... as I hinted before, half the movie is based on the Julie Powell, the other on the life of Julia Child (or at least the 1945 through 1962 portion of it). And one half is much funnier, much more entertaining, and just plain better than the other.... and the good half is NOT Powell's half. Her story just didn't have... heft. It's not that her story isn't important, it is... it provides a wonderful counterpoint to what is happening to Julia in HER half. But Godfather, Part II this ain't... Meryl Streep is incredible, really channelling the six-foot-two chef (but comically so, not fully disappearing a la Sophie's Choice)... And her story is interesting. On the flip side, Amy Adams is fine. She is. And she's so damn cute. But her story, Julie's story, just can't match the Julia story.

The two stories and characters have some neat parallels... female government worker finds meaning in life through cooking... nice husbands... struggle to find fame/fulfillment. But here's the thing: I've read the first couple of chapters in the Powell book... it's a fun read, engaging and conversational. And it opens with a discussion of Powell's fertility (I believe still unused), and one of the film's interesting aspects is Julia's desire but seeming inability to have children (played as subtext in two very strong moments--one at the beginning of the film, as she and her husband Paul walk the streets of Paris, and she sees and for a moment is distracted by the sight of a baby carriage, the other about two-thirds of the way through the film when she breaks down after receiving a letter informing her that her sister, newly married, is now pregnant). It's good stuff, but the film completely ignores Julie's fertility. For a film that is trying to make parallels between the two women, it seems a bizarre lapse.

The two other lapses in storytelling also occur in the Julie storyline. There's a ridiculous (and by now pretty cliched) scene with Julie having lunch with her friends... they're all powerful women who must talk on their phones and use their PDAs at lunch, all while our cute Julie sits ignored (did I mention Amy Adams is soooooo cute?)... the other lapse occurs in the last ten minutes of the film. After Julie's blog wins her attention and offers of publication, she learns that Julia (now nearing 90) is NOT a fan of the blog. Julie goes into a bit of a tailspin over this, but then nothing comes of it (well, one thing: while she bemoans the situation, she's wearing nothing but her husband's shirt, showcasing her really nice legs and butt). So why bring it up at all? It could set up a possible conflict... or better yet, maybe a chance for the two to meet. But nothing happens. And it doesn't work... and it certainly doesn't help the end of the film, which feels flat.

Julie finishes the project, maybe gets published and visits the Julia exhibit at the Smithsonian. Julia gets published and receives a copy of her book arives in the mail. Fade to black. That's it. There's no resolution because there's nothing really to resolve. There's not a lot of conflict.

Julia's story, while fascinating, is not suspenseful. Ephron chooses to focus on her learning to cook and the writing of her cookbook... but since we know who she is, we know she publshed the book, we know she fnished the book... heck, if she didn't finish the book, the whole Julie section wouldn't exist. So there's no suspense.

And for the Julie story... there's really no suspense there, either. We're watching the movie that comes from her book, which wouldn't exist if she didn't accomplish her goal. The only sense of confict is a minor marital spat... but that's resolved pretty easily and NEVER felt like it would be anythng more that a movie contrivance.

I almost get the feelng that this is what happened: Nora Ephron gets the rights to this internet sensation and book by Julie Powell, but in the process of turning it into a screenplay realizes there's really no story there, so she begins a parallel story structure with Julia's story. But Julia's personality just overpowers everything else.

Don't get me wrong: it's not that I wasn't entertained. I was. I was just hoping for more.

It's not a great movie. I'm not sure it's even a good movie. But I did laugh. A lot. At half of it.