Why “Julie and Julia” matters

Julia Child is and always will be a legend. A cooking legend in her later life she has captured the imagination and hearts of amateur and professional cooks everywhere. She is the quintessential quirk in everything that she did. Her show and life inspired a exhibit in The Smithsonian. And the top it all off, she inspired a burned out writer to take Julia Child’s cook book and cook through the year with the idea that it was something to finish after not finishing so many different things in her life.

It is a great movie. Meryl Streep is Julia in every sense of the word. By the end of the film you have fallen in love with her several times over and simply want to reach out and hug her over and over. Then have her cook for you because she was on helluva cook. The Julie character is less perfect and more flawed than Child and it’s an interesting study in perspectives. Halfway though the movie (it’s long but well worth it) Julie sends her husband into a righteous rage about her self centered selfish ego that nearly destroys their marriage. It is a moment of brief seriousness that brings us all down a bit from the half cocked smiled we’ve all had since the credits rolled.

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