Oct.2, 2009

Reviewed by: Richard Lee Zuras

Released Aug. 9, 2009

Rated PG-13

2 hr. 3 min.

Meryl Streep

Amy Adams

Stanley Tucci

Chris Messina

I see a big future for Julie & Julia. I see TBS using it, ad nauseam, for “Dinner and a Movie.” I see lots of people (not all women) having a dinner-themed viewing party centered around the DVD. It does have this kind of appeal.

But I don’t see, other than money– see above– exactly why this movie was released. It is a film based on a book based on a blog about a woman who decides to cook her way (if not eat) through 524 Julia Child recipes. If this is where our screenplays are going to come from– it may be time to re-think the industry for just a minute or two.

As the film goes to great lengths to say– even Julia Child disapproves.

But Meryl Streep does Julia justice. Caught between the (oft) overdone voice, and the bulky, jerky, catterwalled full-bodied movements, there beats a heart. Streep always brings three-dimensionality to her roles– and “Julia” is no exception. The problem lies in the fact that acting, in large part, involves playing off your opposing scene/screen partner. Stanley Tucci, a renowned if lesser known actor, is aptly cast in the role of husband to this scene-stealer named Julia. The problem is, and it is a large, large problem, Stanley’s “husband” role is so under-developed, so cheerfully under-developed, that several moments, such as his role of victim in the McCarthy trials, are glaringly unwritten. At times you wonder why either Julie or Julia had a screen husband (other than to mimic real life).

Julie’s husband spends half the film as the perfect supporter, and the other half as the jealous failure of a man. In attempting to attain versimilitude, the addition of the screen-husbands performs the polar opposite.

Perhaps director Nora Ephron was simply placing the men in the film roles women have played for a hundred years. The “wife” becomes the “husband,” and the actor/role/part is woefully under-valued. Touche! But Nora Ephron, for those who have seen (and who hasn’t?) When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle etc., is simply too good a filmmaker for that. In many ways, she single-handedly transformed the rom-com into something truly worthy of everyone’s attention. Let’s hope she can find her way back after this mess.

And it would be a mistake to think this movie will make you want to cook. (Was that the point? I mean it is a story of a cook who loved to cook, after all.) Dead, sewed up animals. Food dropped on floors. Smoking while eating. Food so thick it looked like it was forming the letters for colonic.

But it might make you love butter again– and you may go running to the lobby for a big batch of artificially flavored butter popcorn.

Again, Julia would not approve.

Bottom Line: 3.0/5.0