For the love of food

I am Angstein. I read. I watch movies. I listen to music. I criticize everything. I am talentless and passionless myself. But that never stopped me from mocking others who try their hand at creative/artistic pursuit. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I am the critic... self appointed and non exclusive of course.
I watched a not-so-new movie called Julie & Julia last week. The in-flight entertainment guide described it as a depiction of two true stories of women obsessed with food. So the movie is primarily partly based on Julie Powell- a dissatisfied government city worker by day and food freak by night. Cooking good rich food is therapy for Julie. She is a fan... no worshipper of Julia Child who is till date the most popular French cook book writer to emerge from America. Julia Child's quest for a French cook book for "servant less American housewives" is the crux of the part of the movie.
Coming back to Julie (played by Amy Adams) . To beat the ennui of her life, Julie takes up a challenge of cooking through Julia Child's magnum opus cook book over the course of one year and she shares this with the world through a blog dedicated to her travails. Sounds like fun if you are a food lover? Sadly, it was anything but that.
What follows is a scene after scene of Julie cribbing about her life, her recipes, her mother, her husband, her job but mostly its about Julie and her issues with life. There is no story here, no plot and the most dramatic scene involves a burnt beef bourguignon. All that Julie talks about is how she is inspired by the life of Julia Child and how she feels Julia's presence in her kitchen. Seriously....like seriously?! The audience is expected to sympathise with a 30 year old who is clearly suffering from mid-life crisis and is trying to cook her way out of it. I wish Julie had instead gone to law school and got a job at a law firm and spared us this movie.
The story of Julia Child set in the 1950s on the other hand, as she discovers the art of French cooking and her attempts at writing a book, is sweet and has its touching moments. Meryl Streep who plays Julia Child creates a character of a woman who is charming yet determined and most importantly doesn’t complain about her circumstances, very unlike our poor lil Julie. The scene where a novice Julia Child is practicing chopping onions to beat the professional chefs in her cooking class quickly establishes the fact that she is a bull headed fighter. The love story between Julia and her husband Paul is also very sweet without much mush. I would have loved it if director Nora Epson had dropped the Julie and made a movie out of Julia Child's life story.
I will not discuss the ending here so as to not spoil the surprise for those of you who still want to catch the movie. My suggestion - stay away from the movie and Julie Powell's book...treat yourself at the nearest Chez Gerard with the money you save.