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This romantic comedy flatters only to deceive,
says Ervell E. Menezes WHAT's cooking! Yes, these two words seem to sum up the gist of Julie & Julia because the one thing common in these two women is an uncontrollable passion for cooking,
Julia Child (Meryl Streep) is a middle-aged TV chef whose shows and cookbooks are voraciously devoured by gastronomists in the length and breadth of the United States and one of her avid and faithful followers Julie Powell (Amy Adams) is bent on having a blog of her recipes. Cooking, they say, is almost second nature to the French and Julia Child specialises in French cuisine for the American palate. Meryl Streep picks up from where she left off as fashion editor in The Devil Wears Prada but her swooning accent tends to get annoying. Though not to her fawning husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) whose diplomatic career takes a distant second. Julie Powell is much younger, actually the generation next and she doesn’t have as smooth a relationship with her live-in boyfriend Eric (Chris Mesina). Like Robert Redford and Jane Fonda in Barefoot in the Park, theirs is a storied apartment in downtown Manhattan and they have to carry their bikes up endless stairs. Set in the late 1940s and based on true-life characters Julie & Julia is about these two women inextricably linked together but director Nora Ephron tries to pack in too much action which tends to dilute the intensity of the drama. There’s Julia Child’s sister, who not only visits her in Paris but also ends up tying the knot. It is here that we have some scintillating lines like "our dad wanted us to stay in Pasadena (California), marry Republicans and breed like rabbits." But it is the exception rather than the rule. There is also reference to McCarthyism, prevalent at the time. But otherwise director Ephron is not at her witty best as in say Sleepless in Seattle or even When Harry Met Sally. With so much on her plate and the expected cuts to Paris and New York, the fare tends to get predictable and even tedious in the latter half. Needless doses of slapstick add to the woes and it soon deteriorates into the usual American mishmash. For once, Meryl Streep
in not quite up to it and it is the younger Amy Adams who is much more
convincing. Stanley Tucci has a serious role for a change and Chris
Messina is at best academic in this romantic comedy, which flatters
only to deceive.
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