Julie and Julia

Feb 04, 2011: Last night I watched this movie called ‘Julie and Julia’ on TV. It is a story about a famous cookbook author (Julia Child, played by Meryl Streep) and one of her ardent fans (Julie Powel, played by Amy Adams).

Julie works with the Customer Service Department of an Insurance Company and is quite hassled by the calls that she gets from irate customers. She tries hard to solve their problems but loses a bit of herself every time she gets screamed at. Back home she has a loving husband; a cute little house and a bunch of super successful female friends.

Just when, the stress at work and the feeling of not having achieved much in life begins to break her from inside; she hits upon the idea of starting a blog. Her supportive husband encourages her to write a blog on cooking – her only stress buster in life.

Julie picks the famous cookbook by Julia Child which has 524 recipes and decides to take upon the task of trying them all in 365 days! And she also decides to maintain a daily blog of her cooking experience.

The film showcases her experience in completing the feat and the reaction within her and of the world outside to her daily blog. Not to mention the fantastic visuals that corroborate the whole cooking experience.

The interesting part is how the film goes into flash back every now and then highlighting Julia Child’s (the author of the cookbook) endeavors to get her recipes published. Now although these two characters are several years apart in time, space and circumstances- the film is successfully able to sketch some very profound similarities between their lives. Especially how they achieve what they achieved. I particularly liked Meryl Streep’s performance in the movie. She has demonstrated the ability to bring sheer joy to your cooking experience just by watching her.

There are some fascinating elements in the movie which is sure to grab your attention for example, when the movie depicts Julia Child’s quest to do something with her time; she tries everything possible from hat making to taking bridge classes before she finally discovers her real passion for cooking! On the other hand even after Julie figures out that one thing that will keep her mind off her stressful job, She never tries to quit her job in the movie, instead she shifts her focus to that one thing that brings her joy.

All I can say is that the movie is sort of going to stay with me for long. I feel I connected with the story at many levels!! That’s not all, there is some good news too. After watching the movie I feel like blogging more (good news for the readers) and cooking more often (good news for Vikram)!!

So happy reading people and happy eating Vikram!!