On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 3/21 |
Jason Lee |
It has two of my most favorite ingredients: great cooking and Meryl Streep |
| 26/82 |
Kelly Metz |
'Julie' scenes - meh. 'Julia' scenes - fantastic. The scenes with Meryl at her usual best made me forget about the ho-hum rest of it. |
| 27/38 |
John Seal |
Well made, well acted, well written and utterly bizarre |
| 88/169 |
Max Braden |
Streep was well cast as Child. I like Amy Adams but her character just seemed like a needy brat. |
Years ago, Julie Powell was turning 30. She felt unsatisfied with her dead-end job and tiny apartment in Queens, so she decided to spend one year working her way through the 524 recipes in a Julia Child cookbook, blogging about her experiences in the process. The blog turned into a successful book, which is now being turned into a Nora Ephron film.
The Academy Award-nominated Amy Adams plays Powell in a performance that is sure to find her being just as unbearably cute as she was in Enchanted. Chris Messina plays Powell’s husband Eric, who finds himself caught up in Julie’s project. Bearing very little resemblance to the famous chef, Meryl Streep seems an obvious choice to play the late Julia Child in the film. (Evidently they couldn’t get Dan Aykroyd.) There’s very little doubt that an actress of Streep’s caliber could at least keep the film interesting. The movie pairs an adaptation of Powell’s book with one of Child’s own memoir My Life In France. Stanley Tucci plays Child’s husband Paul.
Lacking Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan and a central romantic love story, Julie and Julia has only one of the four hallmarks of a successful Ephron film: an intrinsic appeal to women. Powell’s book was hailed as having a witty voice very much akin to that of Helen Fielding’s in Bridget Jones’ Diary. What with the film adaptation of Fielding’s book being as popular as it is, Powell’s end of the Julie and Julia film may come across to some audiences as a bit derivative, but that shouldn’t keep it from becoming quite popular with its female target audience. There simply aren’t enough films for women and as such, every female-centric film worth mentioning has been exceedingly successful. Childs’ end of the film will probably hold wider appeal if it closely follows her account of falling in love with French cuisine and becoming a media icon in the process. (Russ Bickerstaff/BOP)
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