- I see maybe two or three films a year at the movie theater, but I rushed right out to see this one. Meryl was magnificent as Julia, but that was already obvious from the opening seconds of the TV trailer.
As for the rest of the movie: it seems a little too easy to heap criticism on a character based on a real person who, if the story has any factual basis, is deeply insecure and sensitive to criticism. I haven't read Julie Powell's book, but I was particularly bored and irritated by her trials and tribulations as she struggles with a daunting, artificial self-imposed regimen. I had the same difficulty with the books "Plenty," and "Animal, Vegetable and Miracle." I understand having a project or a focus, but I just can't get terribly excited about the travails of someone who has imposed unreasonable constraints on themselves. Why wasn't it enough to simply cook every recipe in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," or even almost every recipe? Why did she need to kill herself to get it done in one short year?
Aside from any differences in the quality of the acting, I think that was the reason the Julia scenes were so much more alive for me than the Julie sequences. Julia's struggle was organic, and the grace with which she faced it was genuine and engaging.
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