Julie & Julia (2009)

For a chick flick, girl power type of movie, it wasn't that bad. I definitely was not going to stand in line for this at the theaters, but since it got sent to my house, I figured I'd give it a whirl.

The movie follows two plot lines at once. The one I consider to be the main one involves Julie Powell (Amy Adams). Julie is closing in on her 30th birthday and has a menial job with virtually no money to her name. Her friends are stuck up snobs with high paying careers while she works in a cubicle answering phones all day. After a "friend" writes a somewhat demeaning article about her, she decides to use her passion for writing and start a blog. She likes to cook, so she decides to do every recipe from the Julia Child cookbook in one year. There's the 2nd plot line, the life and times of Julia Child (Meryl Streep). It follows her love of her husband (Stanley Tucci) and her love of food, specifically French food. In the 1940s, it was almost unheard of for a woman to get into a French culinary institute, let alone an American woman. She got in and, while the head cook loved her, the headmistress hated her. She decided to strike out one her own and, with the help of some friends and acquaintances, try and release her own cookbook. Full circle, huh?

Streep's performance was pretty good, definitely Oscar nomination worthy. I've honestly seen better work from Adams. Her performance was just okay. The one that didn't get enough credit was Tucci as Child's unbelievably faithful and proud husband. I thought he was fantastic. This was not included in the 10 Best Picture nominees but I actually thought this was just as good as, if not better than The Blind Side.