Julie & Julia

I picked up the book based on the blog, Julie & Julia, earlier this year as a possible birthday present for a friend who loves to eat. Actually, all my friends love to eat. Our own little L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes (Dining Division). Five pages in, I returned the book. Whiny, self-absorbed, and lost with only money and status as guideposts, Julie Powell was not someone I wanted to get to know. More importantly, she was not someone I wanted to represent women, quarter-life crisis or not.

So I went to the movie last night with some hesitation. Meryl Streep has acting power to lift any movie -- she was so captivating in Mamma Mia amid all the nonsensicalness, I felt inexplicably happy with her -- but this is called Julie & Julia, not the other way around. Bring on the self-pity. Its doppelganger Julia & Julie would be about the vivacious giantess at 6'2" who swooped onto public television, teaching cooking like an art and a sport. For this elementary school kid, Julia Child had equal air-time in my life as Darkwing Duck and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had no idea what she was cooking half the time but watching her fascination and energy infused me with some sort of pluck, for climbing the highest jungle gym or tackling my math homework or standing up to a bully. She taught me a lot, without teaching me a single thing about cooking.

I was only partly right about this movie, Julie & Julia. It was predictably disjointed: Meryl Streep overshadowed Amy Adams but not as much as the Julia Child outshined Julie Powell. Beef bourguignon vs. marshmallow fluff. Butter vs. Pam. There may be parallels, yes, but they are only superficial. Even Julia's relationship with her husband Paul (I'm more enamored by Stanley Tucci with every movie he makes), there is a depth of love and passion that people would give up anything to be so lucky. My favorite scenes in the movie? Every single one with Julia. I wish the whole movie could have just been about her. I know I'm being a bit harsh but when it comes to her, you better be a heavy-hitter bringing your A-game or you will come off, as one critic said, as having "the emotional depth of a saute pan."