Katha Pollitt: Julie & Julia: Women Excelling at Work

By Katha Pollitt, The Nation
Posted on September 7, 2009, Printed on September 7, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/142411/

There were many things I loved about Nora Ephron's clever and affectionate Julie & Julia, the feel-good hit of the summer for foodies and nonfoodies alike. Meryl Streep radiated warmth, excitement and cheer as Julia Child, learning to cook and writing Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1950s Paris. Amy Adams was vulnerable and endearing as Julie Powell, the drifting secretary-hipster who finds a purpose in life (and fame and fortune) when she spends a year cooking all 524 recipes from The Book and blogging about it. I loved that the most violent moment was the boning of a duck, that the only technological gizmos were pots and pans and kitchen knives and that the proper slicing of a sackful of onions served as a hilarious plot point. I enjoyed the American-in-Paris hokeyness of the Julia episodes: Ephron's Paris is a Francophile fantasy, all high-ceilinged nineteenth-century apartments, lovable shopkeepers and one fantastic meal after another. You would never know that only four years before Julia and Paul Child arrived in France, World War II was in full swing, Nazi occupation, roundups of Jews and all. I enjoyed, although somewhat less, Julie's up-to-date New York, in which she swings between her crummy apartment over a pizzeria, her job answering phones at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and chic Cobb salads with sleek, successful, obnoxious former classmates.