Review of Julie & Julia (2009) by Olympians — 06 Nov 2010

I loved this film. Meryl Streep is utterly brilliant in it, and completely believable as a cook and cookery writer. I do have 3 slight reservations about cast and script tough.

Firstly, Stanley Tucci did not entirely work for me as Julia Child's husband (nothing to do with his acting) but, to my eyes, he looked far too young to be 10 years older than she was . We can see that he is a dapper dresser and particular about his appearance but in those days someone his age did not look that youthful (all shiny complexion and wrinkle free face). Secondly although Julia Child is a household name in the US, in Europe we had no idea who she was and I felt that there could have been a couple more scenes before Amy Adams' character embarked on her cooking odyssey to somehow explain to the audience the size of the leap that was about to take place between being able to cook simple but tasty food like bruschettas (as we see her do at the beginning of the film I think) and the demanding technical skills she would have to acquire to be able to cook Julia Child's food. It took me a while to realize we were entering serious food territory.

Thirdly, the lady who plays one of the characters involved in trying to put together the first draft of the cookery book (the one who never puts in any work) is not a native speaker and it it does feel rather strange to hear a supposedly French person , in Paris, speaking accented French. It is a small detail but could a native French speaker not be found? None of the above ruined my enjoyment of the film though I have to say and I am very pleased to see that my long held belief that Amy Adams is the best character actress to come out of the US in the last 5 years remains as strong as ever.