In Contention

Tag: Julia Child

  • Who the hell was that?

    Meryl Streep in Julie & JuliaCoincidentally enough, the same day that Kris spotlighted the Best Actress race, the category has been on my mind too — as a thought hit me that could factor in what is potentially one of the tightest duels of the season.

    Almost every Oscar prognosticator on record has already boiled the Best Actress contest down to Carey Mulligan versus Meryl Streep, and until the precursors arrive to shed some light on the matter, there’s almost nothing in it on paper.

    Advantage Mulligan for being in a probable Best Picture nominee. Advantage Streep for playing a prominent real-life figure. Advantage Mulligan for being this year’s hottest ingenue. Advantage Streep for being, well, Meryl Streep. And on it goes, back and forth.

    But if there’s one area where Mulligan holds a clear advantage over Streep, it’s with the so-called “BAFTA block” … the British contingent of voters who seemingly make their presence felt more in the Academy voting by the year. (Recent BAFTA-led surges for “The Reader,” Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton are a case in point.)

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  • SHORT TAKE: “Julie & Julia” (***1/2)

    Julie & JuliaIt’s probably a little cliche to lead a review of Nora Ephron’s “Julie & Julia” with a phrase like “I’m not wired for movies like this.”  It ends up being a back-handed compliment to the film and doesn’t exactly illuminate why it’s a successful piece of work, but that is, nevertheless, the first thought that popped in when, to my surprised delight, I found myself falling in love with it.

    Cleverly adapted from two novels by Ephron (Julie Powell’s “Julie & Julia” and Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme’s “My Life in France”), the film moves along at an airy but focused pace for an hour and a half or so before losing that momentum going into the third act, but along the way, it provides the expected showcase for a controlled Meryl Streep performance that couldn’t have been more “on.”

    In some ways, it’s becoming almost unsettling, the acute level of precision with which Streep can flesh out a character.  Almost as if something’s off, like the paranoid feeling that seeps in when things are too “good.”  As chef Julia Child, Streep manhandles the role and makes it her own, exuding passion, dedication and a well-rounded personality that we’ve only truly known as a performance of sorts on TV throughout the years.

    The film parallels the story of Child’s culinary awakening in Paris (accompanied by her loving husband, Paul Child, played by Stanley Tucci) with that of Julie Powell, living a modest but unfulfilled life in Queens and stumbling onto a raison d’être in Child’s cookbook.  Powell, annoyed at her knack for never finishing what she sets out to do, commits to cooking every recipe in Child’s book over the course of one year.

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