The movie Julie & Julia will make you want to kill lobsters and eat sticks of butter. It takes on two true stories and attempts to mix them together: the first is that of renowned chef Julia Child and the second is lowly Queens blogger Julie Powell, the Cinderella of the story.

It's 2002. Julie Powell lives in Queens. Julie Powell works a boring government job. Julie Powell is married, almost 30 and unfulfilled in life. So, Julie Powell commits herself to cooking all 524 recipes from Julia Child's master cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and transforms her life by documenting her task in a blog that becomes insanely popular. The blog relates back to Julia Child, and it starts to become lucrative. First it turns into a book, becomes a bestseller, turns into the first movie-based-on-a-blog which cuts between Child's life and Powell's, and is still doing fantastically well in the box office. All of us scrappy writers cheer on the success-against-crazy odds.

That's pretty much the premise of this film.

It's absolutely more of a chick flick than comedy although it has strong elements of both. It has many hilarious moments sprinkled throughout, pulling from the audacity of the task at hand and the infectious personality of Julia Child brought to life by Meryl Streep. Killing lobsters with great guilt is just as humorous as seeing a 40's-glammed out woman compare hot pasta to male genitalia. These are things someone who is unfamiliar with Julia Child may find surprising. The story itself is not as eye opening, but the way it's told most certainly is. There's a sharp contrast between the likability of the two women, with a romantic flair woven into Child's story that seems to be replaced by bleak desperation in Powell's.

Image © Columbia Tristar Marketing Group, Inc.

The Julia Child story focuses on her time spent living abroad in Paris with her husband Paul. He was working for the government and she was searching for "something to dooooo," and finds that cooking is her passion. She is an extraordinary character and Streep has done her own career no damage by playing her. If anything, by the end of the film audiences wished for a continuation of the story of the tall, loud, boisterous chef with no fear.

Unfortunately for Amy Adams and the real Julie Powell, the continued flashes back to 2002 Queens seem to be the downer moments in the film. Throughout, Adams' character is either exemplified very well and nobody really likes Julie Powell, or Adams' is doing a poor job of charming audiences - from multiple first hand sources, there's no need to blame Amy Adams. Or Powell for that matter. If that's what her life truly was while slaving over a tiny kitchen apartment for a year, well, so be it. Reality bites. But the narrative seems weak and almost like fluff compared to a mega-persona like Julia Child.

Julie & Julia © Columbia Tristar Marketing Group, Inc.

There are fantastic scenes any first-time chef can appreciate. Poaching an egg, chopping onions, and ingredient prices are all fair game and add details to the story. During the New York scenes that focus on Powell's journey, it makes you care about what is happening and why sticking to a personal goal is so important, even if Adams' extra-mousy haircut makes you long for the super-tight red curls of Meryl Streep (great actress, but not exactly Adams'-level eye candy). Powell herself is quite lovely, but turning Adams the starlet into a normal New Yorker perhaps demanded a heavy hand with the plain Jane make-up. The art director is absolutely split between the two settings, which just emphasizes the sense of freedom and adventure (Paris) or isolation and ennui (Queens).

The human element found with Powell's endeavor seems too common for the current times, but back in 2002 it was new. Yearning for importance as a Gen-X'er and finding it in the form of an online blog is like a dream-come-true for the generation (and subsequent generations) that find their lives and activities so important that they share them publically. Had this been a picture-a-recipe project for Facebook it may not have been as successful. The day-to-day blog format draws in a loyal audience and creates chatter. At one point Adams' as Powell becomes so obsessed with her followers it creates a rift in her marriage - a chilling foreshadowing from the past that too much virtual communication will harm first-person connections?

Skipping joyfully away from any commentary on the technological timing of the whole Julie/Julia project-turned-film, the movie also tosses a twist out at the audience. If you have read the blog or book, it's an obvious surprise, but nonetheless a good one. Julia Child did not fully support Julie Powell's blog. From Child's perspective, it's not entirely shocking. Though it must have devastated Powell to hear her idol did not want to meet her, thank her for the wonderful blog and become best friends, it was a shot of reality from which this film benefited. Life isn't always going to turn out picture perfect - your hero may regard you with indifference, your cookbook may be denied by the first publisher. Powell, and Child, both overcome these little snags in the road and as you'll find, do quite well for themselves along the way.

The credits roll with a line about Powell's blog being turned into a book. Which has been turned into a movie. Duh. The cheeky, so-obvious-it-hurts prologue information does not add "Which you've just seen," although it would fit the tone of the pleasant and delicious-looking story. Child passed away in 2004 and Powell eventually relocated to the west coast, but her blog is still online for the interested reader. A favorite excerpt to give you a taste of her style and spunk:

"I would like to say to you all now that while I have always found vegetarians a bit silly, since I have been eating like one my contempt for them is boundless. Jesus, what a boring, sad life it is. Wouldn't be so bad, if you'd just throw in some f*cking bacon."

No offense vegetarians.


Story by Kate Kostal

Starpulse contributing writer