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Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina, Linda Emond ... see more see more... , Helen Carey , Mary Lynn Rajskub , Jane Lynch , Joan Juliet Buck , Crystsal Noelle , George Bartenieff , Vanessa Ferlito , Casey Wilson , Jillian Bach , Andrew Garman , Michael Brian Dunn , Remak Ramsay , Diane Kagan , Pamela Holden Stewart , Jeff Brooks , Frances Sternhagen , Brooks Ashmanskas , Eric Sheffer Stevens , Brian Avers , Kacie Sheik , Megan Byrne , Deborah Rush , Helen Coxe , Amanda Hesser , Maryann Urbano , Simon Jutras , Felicity Jones , Meg Kettell , Stephen Bogardus , Byron Jennings , Kelly Au Coin , Richard Bekins , Luc Palun , Rémy Roubakha , Marceline Hugot , Erin Dilly , Robert Emmet Lunney , Tom Galantich , Allyn Burrows , Julia Prud'homme , Dimitri Radochevitch , Emmanuel Suarez , Christelle Cornil , Françoise Lebrun , Teddy Bergman , Jean-Pierre Becker , Mark Wilkins , Jamie Hall , Francesco David , Dianne Dreyer , Mary Kay Place , Dave Annable

Nora Ephron adapts Julie Powell's autobiographical book Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen with this Columbia Pictures production starring Amy Adams as an amateur chef wh... read more read more...o decides to cook every recipe in a cookbook from acclaimed celebrity chef Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep) in order to chronicle it in a blog over the course of a year. Streep's Devil Wears Prada co-star Stanley Tucci re-teams with the actress as Child's husband. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi

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69% liked it

350,096 ratings

Critics

75% liked it

212 critics

PG-13, 2 hr. 3 min.

Directed by: Nora Ephron

Release Date: August 7, 2009

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DVD Release Date: December 8, 2009

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Flixster Reviews (17,998)

  • FiLmCrAzY
    May 1, 2012
    FiLmCrAzY
    Okay so from reading the back of the DVD i couldnt have expected much from this movie, but i did and it was just a bit of a disappointment! For two hours worth of movie i thought there might be a bit more going on in this movie but nope it moves along at a slow pace and at the en... read mored you just feel unsatisfied by whats happened!
    I like both Amy Adams and Meryl Streep in this movie but thats about it!
  • TomBowler
    November 7, 2011
    TomBowler
    Constantly on the precipice of sickly sweet but tempered with some great performances from Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci. Full review later.
  • SirPant
    October 17, 2011
    SirPant
    I'm 50/50 on this one. I loved the Julia Childs half of the story but loathed the

    Julie Powell half. Meryl Streep was perfect casting, I wasn't aware of Julia Childs before this film but after watching a few clips on the internet, I totally get it (if you're interested, the B... read moreritish equivalent was Fanny Cradock, a very different character but equally entertaining). Stanley Tucci was also on top form, the two of them making quite a lovely pair and it was very sweet to see them together. Amy Adams on the other hand, was not so enjoyable to watch. This is where I'm fuzzy though. Was it a bad day in the office for Adams, a great actress who so far hasn't had a bad performance in my opinion or is the actual Julie Powell as annoying as she is portrayed? If you go up against Meryl Streep you will always come out second but I don't think that was the problem here, maybe it was Nora Ephron's writing/directing that was the problem. I dislike most of her films, Bewitched being in my least favourite top 10 (which says a lot 3000+ reviews down). I think it's more likely that the problem is that while Julia Childs was a much loved personality with an interesting story and Julie Powell just isn't. There was nothing special about what she did, if anything, she rode on the back of Childs success. It's a sad reminder of the modern world we live in, people get successful off of other peoples work. It's funny though, I see by other peoples reviews that they felt let down by the anticlimax of the film, where I on the other hand (without spoiling it for others) loved it. Maybe it's the sadist in me, but to be honest, I found Julie Powell very unlikable and it beggars belief by how successful she's become by being such a vampire. If they'd stuck purely with the Julia Childs story this could have been brilliant, making it quite a painfully wasted opportunity.
  • spielberg00
    September 4, 2011
    spielberg00
    JULIE & JULIA isn't quite memorable, but it makes a good comedy/drama. Unfortunately, cooking seems to be the only thing here (well, besides blogging), and much of the plot becomes shallow, making us feel as if Amy Adams and Meryl Streep are never going to reach the point they i... read morentend to get to. Overall, this was quite enjoyable.
  • ceWEBrity
    August 9, 2011
    ceWEBrity
    There are exactly two reasons to see this movie. Just reading that sentence, you've probably figured out the first one, and it is a true testament to her powers that she is able to essay such a loving, comical interpretation of a larger-than-life figure within the confines of suc... read moreh excruciating vacuity.

    The second reason is so you can keep up with this.
    http://lawrenceandjulieandjulia.blogspot.com/
  • danperry17
    June 27, 2011
    danperry17
    A friend recently told me that he has a hard time watching Meryl Streep, because he doesn't see characters, he just sees Meryl Streep Acting. Interesting. I was conflicted about her Oscar-nominated performance in this film, because I thought that for the most part, she was over t... read morehe top. The caveat to such a claim, though, is that Julia Child is someone who truly was larger than life.

    My point is simply this: for all that was said about Streep, there is a lot more to love about this film than her. Attacking from a different angle, let me compare this flick to the Brooklyn Book of Wonder (BBOW) phenomenon, as identified by (I think) Jonathan Lethem. This is yet another believable, slice-of-life story about the alchemy of an average person's self-discovery upon moving to the city. (It's a little Balzac.) Julie Powell is portrayed as someone who comes from a family of bumpkins (hear her mother's accent?!), but through the magical isolation that comes with a depressing job and an apartment above a pizzeria in Queens (after moving from Brooklyn), she finds herself in an unconventional way: by identifying with a forebear, Julia Child.

    But without overthinking the film, note the following: Amy Adams is good, and Stanley Tucci shines (again!) with Streep, as he did in The Devil Wears Prada. The just-turned-thirty, writing woman story will speak to Sex and the City fans, and given that Mark Ruffalo's too old for this role, we've got Chris Messina to ably play the charming and supportive-if-dopey partner to Adams. I liked Mary Lynn Rajskub's bit part ("Chloe Lite"), Jane Lynch simply disappeared into her bit part, and two scenes border on the iconic; I won't spoil them, but one puts Talking Heads' song "Psycho Killer" to fantastic use, and the other provides one of the more memorable, drastically hilarious "cut-to" scenes in recent memory. Overall, I thought the somewhat cliched story of the present-day writer was more gripping than the bio-pic-y flashbacks to Child's life, but given that the story's about the echoes between the two lives, a film that lifted one above the other might very well not have succeeded.

    So, a lot of good things to say, indeed. I think it boils down to this: if you love Streep (or, I suppose, Julia Child), you'll love this movie; however, if you're merely lukewarm to her or her character, you should watch it anyway. There's enough here that she herself won't make or break your experience.

    Er, I mean... uh... it's pretty good, for a chick flick.
  • paulsandberg
    March 17, 2011
    paulsandberg
    Julia and Julie combines the efforts of two books, one the memoirs of Julia Child's experiences in Paris (with other bits included from her pen-pal writings), the other a self serving book penned by a woman who comes up with the gimmick of blogging about her efforts to produce al... read morel the 500 plus recipes in Julia Child's groundbreaking cookbook in one year.

    The concept is interesting enough, and through the first half of the film it is certainly entertaining, as you get to meet Julie (a solid, if perhaps too sweet performance by Amy Adams), a bright woman of 29 who (as the film drills into your head constantly) has problems completing a project (like a half finished novel that she gave up on after receiving a single rejection letter).

    On the flip side you are introduced to a force of nature - a former civil servant who is now married to another civil servant posted in Paris. This whirlwind who seems to savor every moment of life frankly could not have been portrayed by anyone other than the incomparable Meryl Streep. To say that she nailed the role, down to all the mannerisms and that one of a kind voice, is an understatement.

    The film moves back and forth, from Julia to Julie, showing a generational gap with a bit of feminism thrown in for good measure. I suppose that screenwriter and director Nora Ephron was intending to show that both these women were of the same silk - but it certainly didn't play that way. Julia's story of bringing French Cuisine to the American kitchen is simply her desire to do SOMETHING. Fortunate enough to be supported by her husband she is shown, in a series of humorous vignettes, to be searching for something to do to fill her days. Having had an appreciation for good food, she discovers her passion for cooking and presenting it as well - and has the brass to enroll in the professional chef's class at the famed Cordon Bleu school. Her competitive drive kicks in and the rest is history (of course with a few bumps along the way).

    Julie, however, is portrayed as a very bright woman filled with self-doubt, who stumbles upon a nifty gimmick and then challenges herself to stay the course, becoming so obsessed that she all but forsakes her relationship with her husband. This is the generational gap I was referring to. On one hand, you have a woman supported by her husband's job, who is given the opportunity to pursue her "hobby", while on the other you have a working woman, broadsided by the feminist expectations that have molded her into a self centered "all about me" girl. I found this juxtaposition interesting for a time, and, along with the tales being told, it held my interest throughout most of the film.

    I say "most of the film" because as it progresses the film losses momentum. The Child's story becomes more of a biopic, with several totally unnecessary scenes (Julia's sister's wedding comes to mind), while the Julie story begins to become simply tiresome and predictable. As both stories begin to meander, it gave me ample time to contemplate the overriding incongruity of the Julie story. Here is a young couple, living in small apartment above a pizza parlor, and yet able to come up with the coin to produce 1.5 recipes per day for an entire year. Never mind that Julie works full time and seldom gets home before 6 or 7 pm each night - and that most of the Child's recipes take a great deal of time to prepare and cook - I guess midnight meals are not a problem for modern day New Yorkers? And never mind that a great deal of the ingredients needed for these recipes won't be found at the corner bodega. And certainly never mind that Julie somehow is able to work all day, cook all night, find time to shop for ingredients, and still has time to write a blog - guess New York has 40 hour days.

    It also struck me that Child's great book is a testimony for the time in which it was written (the 50's). At that point most women did not inhabit the work force, so had ample time to prepare these scrumptious meals for their working hubby. My marital unit and I both enjoy cooking, but save the Child book for weekends, when we have time to execute the recipes.

    In a final note, I found Stanley Tucci to be totally wasted as Child's husband. He does nothing more than smile her way with affection - a kind of feminist and myopic view that became more off-putting as the film progressed, reducing Tucci to reactionary "gee whiz" statements.

    My final diagnosis: a solid 6, simply based on Streep's portrayal and a few humorous moments that take place in the first half of the film. The film goes on way too long and becomes cornered by it's own conventions, though I don't feel that these conventions made it necessary to have included any of the scenes that occurred after Julia left Paris - nor half of the refusal scenes portrayed as she tried to get her book published. This all took the Child story, which was funny and fascinating for the first half, and sunk it into a run of the mill biography. At least the film had the smarts to include the wonderful Child parody by Dan Akroyd on the old Saturday Night Live - those early days were magical. I should also mention that the film has some god aweful sound editing - the voice dubbing is almost japanese voice over terrible.
  • DreamExtractor
    March 3, 2011
    DreamExtractor
    Enjoyed it, but an empty and sad ending
  • rjayhutchinson
    January 17, 2011
    rjayhutchinson
    Meryl Streep's performance is a joy to behold, but that's about the only truly positive quality of this film. The film just sputters along, flopping back and forth between two supposedly parallel stories, trying very hard to mean something. But it's just unable to do that. The en... read mored result is a feigned, sappy mess, the clear result of Nora Ephron applying her distinct film-making style to a story she should never have touched. At its core, the film is about an implied change in Amy Adams' character, a change that the film fails to tangibly deliver by the film's end.
  • fernandorafael
    January 9, 2011
    fernandorafael
    A delight that's bound to please film buffs as well as foodies. Nora Ephron's funny, witty script and the marvelous cast are a match made in heaven. By now, everyone can count on Meryl Streep to deliver a great performance; she doesn't disappoint. Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Jane L... read moreynch and Chris Messina round out one of the best ensemble casts of '09.

    The food, obviously, plays a major role in "Julie & Julia". Exquisitely shot, Julia Child's (Streep) and Julie Powell's (Adams) tasty creations will surely get your mouth watering. The French sequences are particularly stylish.

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Critic Reviews

Ruth Hessey
October 8, 2009
Ruth Hessey, MovieTime, ABC Radio National

Ebullient, witty, and wonderfully warm-hearted Julie & Julia is a celebration of how to live life to the full. Full Review

J. R. Jones
August 20, 2009
J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader

The main reason for seeing this is Meryl Streep's deft comic performance as the fluttery TV chef. Full Review

Charlie McCollum
August 19, 2009
Charlie McCollum, San Jose Mercury News

Sometimes a meal can be less than perfect but still so thoroughly enjoyable that a missed ingredient here or a bit of overcooking there doesn't really matter. Full Review

David Denby
August 17, 2009
David Denby, New Yorker

Julie & Julia is one of the gentlest, most charming American movies of the past decade. Full Review

Michael Phillips
August 14, 2009
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

One can't help but wonder if Ephron would've been better off focusing exclusively on Child: She's simply more interesting screen company. But Ephron's commercial touch serves her well here. Full Review

James Berardinelli
August 11, 2009
James Berardinelli, ReelViews

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about Julie & Julia is the lack of dramatic closure. Full Review

Joe Baltake
August 11, 2009
Joe Baltake, Passionate Moviegoer

'Julie & Julia': Facile, slapdash and terribly repetitive Full Review

Richard Roeper
August 10, 2009
Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com

Less Julie and more Julia, and you'd have the perfect recipe... Full Review

Ben Mankiewicz
August 10, 2009
Ben Mankiewicz, At the Movies

If it weren't for the sheer brilliance of Streep and on-screen husband Stanley Tucci, this would be an easy skip. Full Review

Ben Lyons
August 10, 2009
Ben Lyons, At the Movies

Meryl Streep is terrific. She will be again the darling of the award show season. Full Review

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Facts

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    • Julia Child: You hungry?
    • Paul Child: No.
    • Julia Child: Good!
    • Paul Child: Jules, you're being a little over-competitive don't you think?
    • Julia Child: Well you should have seen the way those men looked at me! Like I was some frivolous housewife just looking for a way to kill time.
    • Julie Powell: Are you back? Please be back.
    • Julia Child: If no one's in the kitchen, who's to see?
    • Paul Child: Your book is gonna change the world, your book is amazing!
    • Julie Powell: Oh Paul, you'r the sweetest man
    • Paul Child: Fuck them!
    • Julia Child: These damn things are as hot as a stiff cock!
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Julie & Julia Trivia

  • What is Julie Andrews' full name?  Answer »
  • What is Julia Roberts real first name?  Answer »
  • What is Julia Roberts real first name? You Chose: e. It's Julia. (Incorrect - 0 pts) Correct Answer: a. Julie (1%) b. Janet (4%) c. Jane (1%) d. Juliet (3%) e. It's Julia. (9%) 'Fraid not. Check imdb.   Answer »
  • I just got a question about Julia Roberts, which was totally WRONG!!!! What is Julia Roberts REAL first name? JULIA IS THE ANSWER, but that was incorrect, they said it was JULIE!  Answer »
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