Mine is not a movie review blog, but this is what's on my mind.
I loved "Julie & Julia." Really, though, I just love Julia. Amy McAdams is forgettable and her character is regrettable. She's self-absorbed and has terrible coping skills for a grownup. She is also neatly eclipsed by a great actress playing a great person.
Julia Child, as portrayed by the skillful Ms. Streep, is a larger-than-life and utterly lovable personality. She is so -herself- with her fluted voice and florid gestures. She is without apology for her candor or her love for butter. She is pure glory in her lust for food and her wonderful husband. Their relationship is boundlessly wonderful and she has that perfect air of a woman who is loved for what she is. She's hilarious and her laugh is singular and quintessentially her own.
I planned to take my mother to see this film. My mother is an amazing cook herself and very much belongs among the ranks of the self-made. Julia Child or Paula Deen are great role models for her best self, and I knew she would love it. However, I have been positively skint since moving, and I couldn't take her to the movies. So, when she saw it on her own, she texted me two things. First, that she needs a string of pearls, post haste. I put it on the list. Second, that Julia Child was hers and hers alone, and they borrowed her without asking. She said she wanted to stand in the theater and explain to people that she has the same pots, uses the same butter, and knew this story long before they did. I love my mother, and she deserves her relationship with Julia. She reminded me of a much younger girl, who's upset because she liked a band long before they were popular, and these johnny come latelies are ruining everything.
I myself have never prepared a single recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I have been inspired to try by this film, and I can't wait to dive headfirst into an aspic or something equally exotic. But I learned my taste and cooking ability and shamelessness for my true self from my mother. She has kissed us and flipped us off and told the stories of her life from her vantage point at the stove, bathed in her own sweat, glowing with butter, making our sometimes very poor house smell like a king's kitchen. In the film, Mr. Child sits and watches Julia cook, much as I always watched my mom, and they share a joke about the relative heat of a canneloni and the male genitals when aroused (see the film.) I saw there my mother sauteing onions and laughing when there was reason to laugh. I saw there my husband, who supports me in everything I love, and adores me in the way that every woman should be adored. Like my mother, I took this film very personally. We're a foodie family; a baguette is never just a baguette.
It was wonderful. I will see it again. I will advise everyone to see it. And I have a shopping list.
1. Mastering the Art of French Cooking,any edition
2. 1 lb good European butter
3. 1 bottle Burgundy wine
4. 1 string of pearls
5. The ingredients of my husband's favorite dish. It's his birthday on Saturday, and I can't do much. But, like my mom, I can always do that.
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