Julie & Julia

Julie & Julia (2009) - Run time: 123min

Plot: New Yorker Julie Powell (Amy Adams) challenges herself to cook every recipe in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year and to blog about it. As her blog grows in popularity, so does Julie's feeling of being somehow connected to Julia. Intertwined within Julie Powell's story is the story of Julia Child (Meryl Streep), her life in Paris, and the years it took her to write her cook book.

Review:

Just a note before I begin - it is completely by coincidence that the first two movies I happened to review both starred Meryl Streep. While I do think she is a great actress, I swear it was by accident!

Back to the review - So going into this movie I didn't have great expectations. I expected to be entertained but didn't really think it would turn out to be one of my favourite movies, and I was right. Here's the thing, this movie wasn't bad ... but it wasn't really great either. I sat watching the entire movie just waiting for something interesting or exciting to happen and it never did. I laughed a few times and wasn't bored to tears by the film, but it wasn't overly exciting. Amy Adams manages to make her character quite likable, which is surprising considering her character could have easily been extremely annoying. Somehow she manages to make you smile even when she is whining or being overly obnoxious.

Meryl Streep did an absolutely AMAZING job portraying Julia Child. The hair, the voice - everything about her was just perfect. You really got a sense of who Julia Child was and where her inspiration came from.

Sadly there isn't really a lot more that I can say about this movie. Julie cooks, Julia cooks, people eat - that's about it. I'm glad I watched it but I certainly have no plans to see it again. This is a movie to rent when there is nothing else at the video store you really want to see but you want something to kill some time.

Rating 5/10 - it wasn't really bad but it wasn't really good either