Allow me if I may friends, to paint you a picture. A packed theatre in the middle of inner city Albany. People of all different ages and temperments enjoying the same film. A film with no explosions, no guns, barely any cursing, and not one classically beautiful person. And at the end-applause. This didn’t happen in 1960. Well it probably did but that’s not what I’m referencing. No, this happened just this evening, to me, tonight as I watched Julie and Julia.
This was everything that going to the movies should be and it was 100% refreshing to see. In a world where every character is a cynic and everyone is aching to their core to be different it was wonderful to see something genuinely happy and exciting in an unironic way. There isn’t a character in either storyline that you come away hating, and in a sense that was off putting. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop-but it never did. Both Julie and Julia have a wonderful enthusiasm and (if you’ll allow me an obvious pun) a hunger for life and for new experiences.
And for food, oh sweet God the food. The food is filmed as lovingly as the people, if not oftentimes more so. It is just as much a character as anything else and if I may be so bold as to say so, it is the true hero of the story, saving both of these women from lives of bordom and giving them a purpose.
The editing of the film reminded me of a musical with dual story-lines where the same things happen but in different ways. I didn’t think it was going to work cutting back and forth but it does. The flow of the movie is constant and if it takes you out of the picture, frankly you’re thinking too much.
That’s just the kind of film this is. It allows the viewer to go with the flow. It’s an inspiration. There was a gap in my writing that I was inspired to end based on the things I had to say about this movie. It was just what a film should do. I left wanting to write (goddamn more than 500 words of my Nic Cage book), wanting to learn to cook (really learn to cook, no more kind of sort of “well I could try this” cooking but fortifying cooking), and wanting to fall stupidly, whole heartedly in love (well, ok. I’ve always wanted that but if you come out of this movie not believing at least a little in true love? You’re a robot and need someone to deprogram your cold, metallic heart).
A lot of this has to do with the film’s pettigree. Nora Ephron knows how to write stories about women for women. To name a few films your mom has probably cried to: michael, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got mail, and my personal favorite When Harry met Sally. What are these? They’re feel good movies. They make you believe that everything is going to be ok.
And you know what? Everything will be.
