I'd been meaning to write about this movie for a long time. With Julie Powell passing away earlier this year (sadly at age 49 of cardiac arrest), I finally have the excuse I need to finally write it.
I can't quite say that Julie is why I decided to start blogging in general. But I'd be lying if I said that I didn't imagine attaining a similiar level of success with my own blogs.
...
The movie takes a very interesting approach with its narrative. It moves between two different character arcs and draws parallels between the two.
*1950's- The great chef and TV personality Julia Child, who found her passion for cooking later in life and collaborated on "Mastering the Art of French cooking."
*2002- Julie Powell, who went from working at a call center for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (their mission was to help rebuild after 9/11) to writing a very successful blog cooking through the book's 524 recipes in a year
Both have various hurdles to overcome and ultimately find success in their pursuits.
The movie kicks into gear when Julie has the epiphany to start a blog. Someone in her friendship circle began one and it focuses on rather trivial things.
While cooking for her husband that evening, she has a lightbulb moment and says:
"I could write a blog. I have thoughts..."
Every now and then, that line comes to me and I embrace it. Heck, I should have it as a T-shirt. My thoughts are scattered across so many mediums and platforms, it's even even funny.
Another part of Julie's motivation- she'd never finished anything she started so giving herself a deadline with her blog was a good way to keep the pressure on. For better and worse.
As for Julia Child, her character arc focused on how she became a chef and later became involved in the cookbook she became famous for. She attends Le Cordon Bleu (even the uninitiated know that name carries a lot of weight in the culinary world) and is perceived with a lot of skepticism by her professors. One funny scene from this sequence is when she learns the proper technique to chop onions and her husband comes home to her doing homework. (Stanley Tucci's reaction to all that onion hanging in the air was priceless).
Then she collaborates on rewriting the Art of French Cooking for the common American housewife and endures some challenges with her own. There's two other women on the project. One of them isn't pulling their weight and after much discussion, it's decided that she will get a smaller share of royalties.
The progression of the Julie/Julie project has a lot of fun twists and turns. Like she has to cook a lobster but has a panic attack while trying to boil it. She bemoans over and over about how she heard the HVAC previous night whispering "lobster killer"... and after her husband helps her put the lobster out of its misery, he mockingly quips "lobster killer..."
But there's also some setbacks. Like when her aspic doesn't properly set on her first attempt. (According to Wikipedia, it's also called "meat jelly" and it's essentially a savory gelatin with chunks of meat, egg or vegetable inside... maybe I'm missing something, but to me, that doesn't sound appetizing).
The biggest set-back: she prepares Beef Bourguignon (she insists on pronouncing it "Boeuf Bourguignon" to maintain the French in her French cooking) and has multiple failures. First, she cooks it in the oven over several hours and sets an alarm to make sure she takes it out in time. Only problem is that she falls asleep and it winds up ruined. The second time, she ends up having a fight with her husband... all because he adds salt to his portion before tasting it. She's concerned that it's bland and things escalated from there.
We'd made Beef bourguignon several times. Once from Julia's actual recipe, but mostly from the recipes that came with our crockpot. Through the course of the movie, Julie gets gifts from her readers. Why did none of them think to get her a crockpot? Or was that not authentic to the recipe? Whatever the case, it could have saved a lot of aggravation.
Blogging was a fairly new concept in 2002 but within a few years, everyone was doing it. Like what they say nowadays, everyone and their dog has a podcast now.
This movie shows the good and the bad that can come out of it. The way she connected with her readers was really cool, to the point they were becoming part of her culinary journey.
For the negatives: there's one point where Julie is so overcome with grief over a failure that she calls in sick and tells her blog the reason behind it. Her boss reads it and while he's not pleased by this discovery, his one concern is that he doesn't wind up being mentioned in her writing. It's a good lesson to remember.
It's disheartening that Julia heard about the project and didn't approve of it. Particularly, the whole "project" aspect of it and Julie not talking as much about the actual cooking on her blog.
Reading some of the reviews on the Imdb site, lots of people didn't like the Julie Powell character and wished there was more Julia in the movie. Maybe it's because I relate more to Julie, but I found her sections more enjoyable. But I also wasn't among the people who grew up with Julia Child on the TV. My one other point of reference was that she did a voiceover for "We're Back: A Dinosaur Story"- she didn't get much screen time, but her voice was nonetheless memorable.
But her husband has an interesting comment that gets her through the rest of the project. "The Julia in your head is the only one who matters."
One sad truth about life is that sometimes you're better off not meeting your heroes. Even if they don't agree with your methods or your results, what matters the most is how you view yourself and what you personally take away from the inspiration they gave you.
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