Julie and Julia a culinary delight

By Vanessa Ho

There are two things you should not do when you go and see Julie and Julia. The first is don't go when you are jet-lagged, which I did as I just flew in on a red eye from Vancouver to Toronto. Not that the movie wasn't boring, I was just so tired from my trip, I was drifting off that I had move around my seat to stay awake.

The second is not go hungry when you see this movie because I guarantee that you will leave this movie starving and wanting to try some of the dishes yourself that are featured in the movie. My particular favourite was the last one, which was Pate Canard or something to that affect.

I felt the same way when I read the book Julie and Julia by Julie Powell (played by Amy Adams). I really wanted to try and make some of the recipes but all that butter makes me want to have a coronary.

So by now you can tell that Julie and Julia is about cooking and it does indeed tell the tale of office worker Julie Powell who is about to turn 30 in 2002 and seems to have no direction in her life. To find some meaning in it, she decides to cook all of Julia Child's 524 recipes that appear in her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking all within 365 days while risking her sanity and marriage to the ever patient, supportive and understanding husband, Eric (Chris Messina).

Julie chronicles this insane project in blog called The Julie/Julia project. The film captures pretty faithful all the joys and struggles Julie has in making some of the recipes that appear in the Mastering the Art of French Cooking and the tool it takes on her family, in particular her husband and friends.

The film intercuts Julie's struggle with her project with the life of Julia Child (Meryl Streep) while she is living in France. This portion of the film is based on Child's autobiography called "My Life in France" and pretty much traces how Child became interested in cooking by taking lessons at the Cordon Bleu to starting a cooking school to collaborating on what would become her most famous cookbook to finally finding a publisher. Also along for this journey is her supportive husband Paul(Stanly Tucci)

One of the great strengths of the movie is seeing Meryl Streep as Julia Child, she not only does a spot on imitation of the French Chef but someone embodies her can do spirit.

I have read that people really like the Julia part and could do without the Julie part. I disagree. I like both parts. The movies does go a length of time without us seeing Julie for awhile or Julia for awhile that I found myself missing them.

Adams does capture the frustration of Julie that is in the book and it was interesting seeing her adventures on the big screen after only reading about it on the page.

It was also interesting to learn more about Julia Child as I didn't know much about her apart from what I saw on TV and the Dan Ackroyd impersonation on SNL. If it wasn't for the autobiography, I don't think writer-director Nora Ephron could have based a whole movie on just Julie Powell's memoirs as there wasn't enough Julia.

I found it interesting that Julie's mother, who is such a presence in the book, seem relegated to a voice on the phone. It would have been nice to see her on camera.

Another strong point is the performances of Tucci and Messina as the husbands to Julia and Julie. They share their wives frustration but while also enjoying the fruits of their labour (meaning the food).

As I said, don't go into this movie hungry, you will want to devour that yummy chocolate cake and Boeuf Bourginon that also appear in the movie. I am getting hungry just thinking about it now.