Movies From the Hat IV #31 – Abbi’s Pick – Julie and Julia (2009)

This is my 2490th Review

Thanks to Abbi of Abbiosbiston.com for this recommendation.

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“I’m not kidding you; I’m not. Someone is going to publish your book. Someone is going to read your book, and realize what you’ve done. Because YOUR BOOK is amazing. YOUR BOOK is a work of genius. YOUR BOOK is going to change the world. ” – Paul Child

Number of Times Seen – 2 (13 Nov 2009 and 7 Sep 2016)

Brief Synopsis – As a bored office worker tries to find meaning in her life, she beings a blog about famed chef Julia Child’s famous recipe book where she takes up the challenge of cooking all 524 recipes in one year.  At the same time,e we learn of Child’s journey from bored diplomat’s wife to the famous chef we all know about.

My Take on it – As a movie blogger, this film has a great reflection on what we all do here.

This film takes place not long after 9/11 (2002, I believe) and back then, people were just starting to realize the potential that blogs could be.

The idea that we can all decide to choose a topic (or topics) that we are interested in and write about them to our hearts content in a (relatively) safe environment is great.

How many of us would still be just watching movie,s reading books or cooking up a storm without connecting with the outside world (literally0 just based on common interests and thoughts?

The way that this film shows the reality of writing a blog really hit home for me because it is so true.

To contrast it with the way a bored woman found a way to counter the boredom of a diplomats wife in France around 1950 was a superb idea.

I really enjoyed the way that they were able to intercut the two stories so well especially due to the large time gaps between the two eventhough they each have so much in common.

The cast is superb here and Amy Adams outshines everyone because her character is more relateable to many of us. Meryl Streep is great here also because she is able to completely transforms herself here into the Julia Child we all know.

The way the characters are depicted makes us believe their lives and loves and they seem quite tangible and real to us despite the fact that the story is obviously quite Hollywoodicized.

Bottom Line – I really liked the way that this movie intercut between both stories, which shows the varying connections between the lives of the two women depicted.  The idea of a blog helping someone find passion in their life is a great one for all to see especially in the blog-driven world we live in where anyone can write about anything they want. (like all of us here). Amazing cast helps us to believe the life and loves of the characters and they all seem very tangible and real despite being Hollywoodicized. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – The publishers at Houghton Mifflin show Julia Child a cookbook entitled ‘Real Home Cooking’ by an author named Della Simmons. Both the book and author are strictly fictional as there was no such book by an author with that name. On the DVD commentary track, Nora Ephron says that the book that the publishers actually gave to the real Child and Beck was “Helen Corbitt’s Cookbook,” a 1957 bestseller by the Director of Food Services for the Neiman-Marcus Department Stores. (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy

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