Movie - Julie and Julia

Yesterday I saw the movie “Julie and Julia”, produced in 2009. It was a fun and relaxing movie. The two female protagonists were very interesting.

First we have Julia Child. She was moving with her husband in 1950s to Paris. She has a lot of difficulties to master. First of all she speaks little French. When she discovers, that she wants to learn how to cook the French kitchen, she doesn’t find any cookbook in american language. But she doesn’t give up and sign up for a cooking class. First she finds herself in a basic course, that she finds boring. But in the advanced cooking class are only men. At that time, it was still common that only men could be cooks. And the women could cook just the simple home cooking. But she could not be stopped, despite all adversities. In this time she met two other women and they decided to write a French cookbook for the American women. After finishing the book, it took years, she couldn’t find a publisher. But as we know through Julie Powell it was later published.

Then we have Julie Powell. She is also moving with her husband to a new apartment. She is a writer and she don’t like her current job in a call center. To distract herself, she cooks. After a meeting with her friends, she also want to write a blog, but first she doesn’t know, what to write. She decides to cook every recipe of Julia Child’s cookbook: “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” (524 recipes) in one year.

It is interesting to see how Julia goes her way despite difficulties. And when she stumbles, then is still her husband, who encouraged and comforts her.

It is also interesting to see Julie. I see some parallels with myself. It is funny, that I also started a blog some time ago.

Another character, who seems to be very interesting in my optinion, is her mother. First of all, she asks her daughter, why she will do this project. In opinion of her mother she has a lot of work with working in call center and household. I personally agree with the mother. Cooking is so much work and also time consuming. She also knows her daughter, who seems have started some projects but didn’t completed one. For example Julie mentioned a half book, which she has written. As time has passed and Julie didn’t get any comments, she started to ask, if there is anybody, who reeds her. And she gets a comment from her mother. Her mother write just a honest opinion, that she still don’t understand her. But Julie is frustrated that the first comment is from her mother, understandable. But I think her mother showed her, that at least there is one reader. And there is another moment, where her mother helps her. Julie had a fight with her husband and as result, she didn’t want to cook anymore, at least on this day. Julie write this at some point in her blog. A short time later she got a call from her mother, who said some words, that Julie shouldn’t give up and continue cooking.

I didn’t assume, that a movie about cooking would have give me so much to think about.