![\"julia\"](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/julia.jpg\" "\\"julia\\"")
<\/a> A lot of talented people were involved in the making of \u201cJulie & Julia.\u201d Too bad writer\/director Nora Ephron wasn\u2019t one of them.<\/p>\nFrom the woman who ripped off \u201cAnnie Hall\u201d (\u201cWhen Harry Met Sally\u201d), \u201cAn Affair to Remember\u201d (\u201cSleepless in Seattle\u201d), and \u201cThe Shop Around the Corner\u201d (\u201cYou\u2019ve Got Mail\u201d), comes another wholly unoriginal and uninspired production.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s first dispense with the niceties: Meryl Streep is superb as the flighty Cordon Bleu chef turned PBS superstar. Given Julia Child\u2019s natural predilection for caricature and self-parody, it is amazing to see how many layers Streep was able to chip through to present a well-rounded character. The same goes for Stanley Tucci. As Paul Child, Julia\u2019s devoted and eternally perplexed husband, Tucci displays a perfect mix of fluster and frolic.<\/p>\n
While Julia Child has an enormous body of work preceding her, Julie Powell (Amy Adams) has only a blog and a bestseller to draw from. (\u201cJulie & Julia\u201d has the dubious distinction of being the first film ever based on a blog.) Adams tries hard, but her mousy, underwritten character remains a bit of a cipher.<\/p>\n
Technically, the films comes complete with an all-star pedigree. Credit the film\u2019s hard-edged hues to cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt (\u201cThe Hunger,\u201d \u201cThe Cotton Club,\u201d \u201cCloser\u201d). With little apparent transitional guidance coming from Ephron\u2019s corner, it a wonder that ace editor Richard Marks (\u201cThe Godfather Part II,\u201d \u201cApocalypse Now,\u201d \u201cBroadcast News\u201d), manages to hold everything together. The production design (Mark Ricker), art direction (Ben Barraud) and set decoration (Susan Bode) give the film, particularly the flashbacks, an air of authenticity the screenplay can\u2019t touch.<\/p>\n
Based on two bestsellers, the film attempts to parallel the stories of world-renown chef Julia Child — and Julie, the secretary who, out of sheer boredom, decides to spend a year cooking every recipe in her mentor\u2019s \u201cThe Art of French Cooking\u201d and blogging about it.<\/p>\n
Apart from the obvious similarities, Ephron never manages to glean much from her two characters. The narrative structure is as perfunctory as it gets. Julia and Paul move to a home in France while Julie and her husband Eric (Chris Messina) relocate from the Bronx to Queens. No tension is ever established between Julie\u2019s success and the possibility of jealousy on Eric\u2019s part. When the couple do briefly break up, it\u2019s simply because this is the only way in which Ephron could add a little drama to the end of the second act.<\/p>\n
For all her attempts at humor, the biggest laugh in Ephron\u2019s film remains the classic Saturday Night Live bit with Dan Aykroyd as Julia hemorrhaging from a knife wound.<\/p>\n
In the end, any film that asks its audience to consider Julia Child\u2019s sex life can\u2019t be all bad. The performances are fine and it sure looks good, but J&J goes down like a cold plate of boiled beef.<\/p>\n
Scott Marks was born and raised in some of the finest single screen movie theaters in Chicago. He moved to San Diego in 2000 and has never looked back. Scott authors the blog emulsioncompulsion.com and is co-host of KPBS-Radio’s Film Club of the Air. Please address any bouquets or brickbats to emulsioncompulsion@gmail.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Scott Marks Written and Directed by Nora Ephron Starring: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci and Chris Messina 2 out of 5 stars A lot of talented people were involved in the making of \u201cJulie & Julia.\u201d Too bad writer\/director Nora Ephron wasn\u2019t one of them. From the woman who ripped off \u201cAnnie Hall\u201d […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":242833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"JULIE & JULIA - Funny, Great Cast, But Still Boiled Beef in the End","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}