Who would have guessed that Meryl Streep could be a dead ringer for Julia Child? Not me. But watching Streep channel Child is a major part of the fun in the movie Julie and Julia. As Sangamo Club manager David Radwine, said, “I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t Julia herself up there.”
More than makeup, clothing, hairstyle, elevator shoes and cinematography tricks transform Streep into Child: It’s also her uncanny replication of Child’s distinctive voice and enunciation, gestures and, not least, exuberance.
That exuberance came through in television shows, appearances and biographies, one aptly titled Appetite for Life. It’s also apparent in her autobiography, My Life in France, published posthumously, upon which the Julia portion of the movie is based. It covers the time when Child and her husband, Paul, moved to France in 1948 until her seminal masterpiece, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, becomes accepted for publication in 1961.
The Julie portion concerns a year in the life of Julie Powell. Powell is frustrated with her life in 2002 — a depressing, dead-end job dealing with 9/11 victims’ families, her politically-connected bureaucrat bosses and a crummy apartment in Queens. But Powell is primarily frustrated with herself. She hits upon an idea to cook all 524 recipes in MtAoFC in 365 days and blog about the experience. Powell enjoys cooking, but has no thoughts of becoming a chef or other food professional. She’s primarily a wannabe actor and writer; as she says about her “Julie and Julia Project,” “When I started my blog, I certainly entertained daydreams about unlikely fame and fortune.”
Well, she got them. Powell’s blog became a sensation. She was interviewed in print, radio and national television. New York Times food writer Amanda Hesser (who plays herself in the movie) came to dinner. Julie and Julia, the book, became a bestseller, and, of course, then a movie.
But while critics have raved about Meryl Streep as Julia, and been positive about Stanley Tucci’s “perfectly casted” role as Julia’s beloved and loving husband, they have been downright hostile about the Julie character. NPR’s David Edelstein called her a “whining cipher,” and said, “I prefer to lop off Julie and her obnoxious husband and concentrate on Streep and Stanley Tucci.” Child biographer Laura Shapiro (Julia Child: A Life) says Julie “tackles each recipe as if it’s her opponent on a battlefield and the only point of cooking is victory.”
In last week’s IT, Chuck Koplinski says, “…there are far too many moments in which we have to see her wrestle with doubt and rage at the heavens at the injustice of working in a small kitchen. This… quickly becomes annoy-
