Watching Julie and Julia—a movie about amazing food—while eating our amazing leftovers from Bistro on Lincoln Park seemed like a match made in culinary and cinematic heaven. We had wanted to see this movie for quite some time, and after a long day of packing, interviews for prospective editors for The Gavel, research, and other hard tasks, both of us were ready to do something enjoyable. Basically, the movie captured the life of a twentysomething woman after she was in a rut and subsequently decided to cook all of the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year and blog about her experiences; simultaneously, the movie captured the life of Julia Child as she learned how to cook French food and as she embarked on the grand experience of publishing a cookbook.

I absolutely loved this movie… for several different reasons. First, like Up in the Air and The Blind Side, this was a plot-driven movie—it didn’t rely on special effects, 3D, gimmicks, or anything but a solid storyline and great acting to “wow” the viewer. I am tired of so movies trying to use 3D and special effects to substitute for a good storyline! Secondly, and more importantly, the movie succeeded on several different levels and had many different layers of meaning. Of course, quality food was central to the story—the various dishes made by Julie and Julia looked absolutely amazing, especially the duck! However, the movie also had several deeper subplots—the importance of setting a goal and sticking to it even in the midst of significant opposition, and the value in being true to oneself and being genuine in the midst of a society that doesn’t appreciate your views or way of living.

I thought that the movie captured the blogging aspect of Julie’s life very well, especially the loneliness of not receiving any comments on posts and the joy one gets when they find out unexpected people are reading one’s blogs. Part of me wonders if they had a technology or blogging consultant on the film because it was darn accurate! I read over a few posts from Julie’s blog (which is still up) and it reminded me of the old days of blogging, when long, personal, regular posts were the norm. Very few of the blogs I read post original content on a regular basis and I truly look forward to their updates! I’ve seen a lot of people set out to do the one photo a day thing and stop after a short period of time and I was really impressed that she was not able to cook all of those dishes in a year, but that she also found the time to write detailed blog entries about them too. Selfishly, I took great joy in seeing Julie get a book deal based on her experiences and writing, mostly because I dream that one day in the future something that I write will help me land a book deal or some sort of professional writing contract.

All in all, I was very pleased with Julie and Julia. Check it out if you get the chance!