Last night me and Haunted Rock Cake went to a preview screening of the movie Julie and Julia at my local Odeon cinema.
Now before I’d seen any posters or heard any synopsis for this film, for some reason I had a mental image that this movie was about a split personality or something (not sure that would be a good subject for a 12A movie, but hey…) but I’m happy to say that this was not the case, in fact it was something totally different.
The movie is based on 2 true stories, of Julia Child and her story of how she got into cookery (the book is called “My Life In France”), and of blogger Julie Powel who challenges herself to cook every recipe from Julia’s first book (Her story is called, oddly enough, “Julie and Julia”).
The movie starts in the late 1940s where Julia Child moves to Paris with her husband (who works for the American Embassy) and she wants to find something to keep her occupied. she tries her hand at a few things and then decides she wants to do cooking, and enrolls into the Cordon Bleu class, and is the only woman in the class!
Coming back to almost present day (early 2000’s) and we find Julie Powel has moved too, and that she cannot seem to complete everything…she also cooks the best meals from Julia Child’s French cookery book when she has the worst days.
Julie decides that she should make a challenge for herself…she is going to to do all the recipes in this book in a year and decides to blog what happens.
The movie chops and changes between the 2 stories and you see the highs and lows in their endeavors and it is great fun to watch, with some sad moments in it as well as some genuinely laugh out loud parts too.
I really liked this movie…in fact the only thing that put a downer on this movie was the extortionate prices for nachos and the rather uncomfortable seating in the cinema…but the movie is a 8/10 and certainly a must have for my DVD collection when released (even though I was almost the only bloke in the screening!)
Julie And Julia is released this week in the UK and is rated 12A