Julie & Julia

Once in a while I go through all the films some of the actors I like have been in and pick one to watch. Usually I read the synopsis, check the ratings and if everything looks good to me, I dump the film on my watchlist. The films can stay on my watchlist for months before I actually watch them, and some I remove without even bothering to try and watch. 

I don't know why I do that. Maybe some of them sound interesting to me when I first find them, but I'm not in the mood when I want to watch something so after I skip them time and time again, I remove them. There are also cases when I don't find a particular film from my list to watch so there's no point in keeping it on the list. 

When it comes to Julie & Julia, the film was on my list for a few months, but it kept calling me. I'm weak for real life inspired films and when I watched the trailer it looked so fun. 

The actress whose films I was stalking this time was, of course, Meryl Streep, a brilliant actress who I enjoy watching on talk shows as well. She has this personality, this joy that attracts me as a watcher to her. That's why it is shocking to me that I didn't watch a lot of her films. Yet, at least. I am obviously on the right track here. 

Back to Julie & Julia, the film is inspired by the book Julie Powell wrote. Julie was encouraged by her husband to start writing a blog about cooking so she took her love for cooking and her admiration for Julia Child and began her journey. With Julia's help, Julie managed to grow as a person, to achieve her goals, and share the adventure in her tiny kitchen. 

Julie and Julia are separated by time and space, but are connected by their passion. They are different, but the same. In a way. In this film we get to see the journey of both these amazing women and how their lives intertwine despite them not meeting each other. I enjoyed seeing both sides and see how they relate. 

The film is also incredibly inspiring. Julie and Julia managed to do what they did, cook, publish a book, thanks to their perseverance. I am glad the film didn't leave out some of the hardships they met (although I suspect it left out some) so we get a more accurate and realistic portrayal. I say realistic because although the film is inspired by real facts, we know how these go, there's always some aspect changed, some cinematic effect to add drama, that kind of thing. 

The cast is great, besides Meryl Streep there's Amy Adams who also plays Louis Lane and was in Catch Me If You Can; the well known Stanley Tucci who was in The Devil Wears Prada together with Meryl Streep, and also in Captain America and Easy A; Chris Messina who was in Sharp Objects and Palo Alto; and Jane Lynch who some of you might know from Glee or as the voice of Sergeant Calhoun in Wreck-It-Ralph. Well known cast, everyone was great, good chemistry, and superb acting. There's really not much else I can say.

That being said Julie & Julia is an excellent film. I did not read any of the books, not Julia Child's and not Julie Powell's the latter being the inspiration of the film, but I might check them out for the great recipes. The original blog is obviously not available anymore, but I did find this blog of Julie's. She stopped writing there in 2010, but looking through the posts it seems like a fun read if anyone's interested.