The Julie and Julia - Movie Review Example

Flim Analysis of the Movie Julie and Julia As the movie Julie & Julia opens, we travel back and forth in time and between countries. By contrasting the moving-in period of the two title characters in the movie, we see how vastly the cultural and city landscape of Julie and Julia has changed over time. While Julie is seen moving into a cramped, 2nd floor walk-up apartment over a restaurant, Julia is shown moving into more spacious quarters in a home, a house located in France. Having set the Julia part of the movie in post World War II France, we are thrown into a sense of a country rebuilding itself and developing its own culture to meet changing times. While Julie lives in a modern career driven world in the United States. The commonality between the two women who are separated by time is that both are trying to find their place in the world. Both women try to bring meaning to their lives through their love of food. Both women also have a limited circle of family and friends who serve as their support group, in highly different ways. Both friendship and family circles though, help to propel their individual stories forward in order to bring it to a successful conclusion. Interestingly enough, the movie also dabbles a bit into the political temper of the times for both women. With Julia living in Post World War II France and Julie living in post 9/11 settings in Long Island City. Overall, the movie brings a sense of historical development, social growth in urban settings, and a look into how the urbanization of two different cities helped it develop in highly different ways. Critical to the successful interest of the audience in the movie is the cinematography is Stephen Blatt who successfully paints a picture of what it was like to live in a foreign country as an embassy wife as Julia Childs did, and what it is like to live as a modern day career wife in Long Island. Perhaps it is because of commonalities between Long Island and France that the movie is able to successfully parallel the lives of its lead characters. Both cities were obviously designed to be walking cities for its residents owing to the urban landscape development of the film. This is evident as we see Julia walking about in France most of the time rather than say, taking the subway or a cab to get around. She can take her time to choose her fresh ingredients at the fresh produce market, and even make small talk with the vendors. Julia is in a more relaxed urban atmosphere where the homes, although closely built as well, offered more of a semblance of privacy and individuality than the urban set-up of Julie, who had to share her space with a restaurant downstairs. Also in stark contrast to Julias urban life, is the fact that Julie takes short cuts in the way she buys her ingredients since she now has supermarkets to go to, and she has an impersonal relationship with the people she deals with in the process. The circle of friends and family that both women move in are also quite different in the sense that Julie, has a critical mother who does not believe that she can succeed in anything that she does, while her husband seems to support her unquestioningly, and her friends, come together to celebrate her successes in life. The differeing urban circle of the two women show how these friendships develop differently as well. While Julia develops face to face friendships with men and women over sumptous meals that she prepares or having tea or restaurant meals with varying people, including her husband, Julies relationships with her friends are limited by her professional activities so that they only communicate by phone or email, getting together only for extra special occassions. Throughout the story of Julie, we only once see her eating out with her so-called friends, which, instead of becoming a bonding moment, as it often was for Julia, the meal turns into a “My accomplishments are better than yours, you are a pitiful creature for not reaching our status” contest between the female friends of Julie. That scene in the restaurant is a pivotal scene that showcases how much times have changed for the public. While Julias meals were based solely on the prospect of enjoying a good meal, the way that Julies group ordered their food made one thing that they were deconstructing a meal instead of eating one. The innocence and lack thereof of the times also become a main character in the movie. Julia needed to break the glass ceiling at Le Cordon Bleu in order to gain entry into a cooking class. She was a mere embassy officials wife whose successes in life, all depended upon her husbands. Even the women who should have been supporting her quest, such as the director of the cooking school, did not offer her any confdence in her quest. France, at the time, was also rebuilding itself after the war, so its people were wary and not totally accepting of foreigners living in their country. On the other hand, Julie works for the benefit of other people in a city whose urban landscape is being redesigned after the traumatic events of 9/11. Both women live in parts of the world that is recovering from a traumatic event, and their cities, along with the people living in them, reflect those times. As a critical reflection of the times that both women lived in, it would seem that Julia lived in far more dangerous times than Julie. She and her husband were not racially profiled but were still targeted based upon their urban location. Having lived in China for a time as a part of the U.S. embassy staff, her husband was unceremoniously brought back to the United States for an inquisition under Mcarthy. This inquisition, which was done to prove his loyalty to the United States can be compared directly with the way that racial profiling is now being used to terrorized Americans and the visitors of the country. The urban development of both Long Island and France in the movie showcases the fact that interpersonal relationships in both settings are based upon the way that an urban city develops. The walking city that France provides allows its people to develop a more personal relationship as time moves slower for them. Whereas the people of Long Island, although also members of a walking city, lives a faster paced life due to the demands of their professional and personal lives. It is this look into the urbanaization of the cities and the lives of the people living in them that makes Julie and Julia a highly interesting visual depiction of its times. Thinking of Julie & Julia as a cinematic masterpiece can only be done so in the context of the way the film was created. As a comparison of the lives of two women who, although living in different eras, are brought together by their common love of food and a paralleling life story. David Thomson explains it best: ... But are they great, are they masterpieces, are they in the pantheon? Some fans would answer “Yes, they are great because I love them.” But most academics would stress their historical value more than their artisitic worth, as if the two were somehow mutually exclusive (Thomson, p. 37) Julie & Julia is a prime example of the way that movies can explain how urban development affects the personal and professional lives of the people living in a particular era. It is almost documentary in nature because of the historical context of its character development. By depicting the lives of the charactes in a comparitive way, the viewers are allowed an insight into the life and times of these two unique women. Works Cited Julie & Julia. Dir. Norah Ephron. Perf. Meryl Streep, Amy Adams. Columbia Pictures. 2009. DVD. Thomson, David. “When is a Movie Great?”. Essay. Harpers Magazine, Jul. 2001: 35- 39. Print. Read More