But nothin’ we can do about that. Or, to put in French, tant pis.
Ephron’s screenplay is a rather unambitious two-track affair, neatly bifurcating the narrative: The one strand follows blogger Julie Powell’s now-famous cooking experiment following every recipe in Child’s landmarkMastering the Art of French Cooking. This culiminated in a book deal and (the movie notes coyly in the closing credits) a movie that made Powell the envy of every blogger in the world. The other strand is the story of Child’s thrilling, life-altering discovery of French cooking in postwar Paris.
You wonder how someone like Charlie Kauffman (Adaptation) might have handled this challenge—the movie calls out for some sort of “meta” slight of hand that would dramatize Child’s life so that it folded into Powell’s, like shavings of a prized truffle in an omelette. Ephron doesn’t seem to be interested. It’s especially startling, late in the film, to learn that Julia Child is still alive, and that she has told a reporter that she doesn’t approve of Powell’s blogging chronicle. Powell concludes that, well, the Julia Child who really matters is the Julia Child of her imagination. But what about the real Julia Child? Was she by this time some grumpy, demented old crustacean who couldn’t get a grip on that crazy internet thing? Somehow Julie staring up at a portrait of Julia and whispering, “I love you” at the end is really not enough to resolve this, or any other issue.
It would help if Amy Adams weren’t so pinched and self-pitying as Powell—she looks like a cute little elf who’s gone sour. On the other hand, there’s Meryl Streep, gloriously funny and alive as Child: Like her star turn in Doubt last year or even her Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, Streep’s peformance is grounded in a witty line of attack. She finds just the right vocal sound, a ludicrously fluty approximation but not impersonation of Child, and launches everything from that. She has mastered the art of acting with a lust and verve that might impress even Child.
August 20, 2009
Future internet wunderkids will re-make the movie with just Julia Child, deftly leaving the soured elf on the cutting room floor along with the famed dropped chicken. We’ll be left just with Streep as the grand Julia, and while they are at it, they can certainly splice in a little fine wine…hopefully the voice overs will not be done in the original Klingon.