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Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Chow / Books / Film Movies About Publishing Suck

Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 3:48 PM

I saw Julie & Julia this weekend. Bethany Jean Clement's review is dead-on; if you're thinking of watching the movie, you should read her review. Meryl Streep is great and endlessly watchable, and Amy Adams' character—Julie Powell, the author of Julie & Julia—is dreadful.

It is a movie about two women. Here is an incomplete list of what one of the women did: worked for the O.S.S.; married a man who served his country for his entire life and then was suspected of Communism by disciples of Senator McCarthy; fought institutional sexism in France; took eight years to write a seminal French cookbook that still stands as the best of its kind in English; and went on to become a decidedly un-gorgeous television star. The other woman took eight years to write a novel that went nowhere, worked for the government trying to help 9/11 victims, and then blogged about cooking every recipe in the aforementioned French cookbook.

I wish this were just a Julia Child biopic. I would have loved to see Meryl Streep perform the entire arc of Julia Child's life, because it was a full, whole life. Julie Powell's story is a publicity stunt that a lot of journalists wrote about because it made for easy copy. There is one achievement and one gimmick, and they are both given equal narrative weight. The movie just isn't balanced properly.

There is a problem, too, with the twinned climaxes of the film: Being published simply isn't enough to build a movie on. It's not satisfying enough a climax, not active or cathartic enough. This is why there have only been two movies about writers that have ever been successful. This is not one of those movies.

Comments (13) RSS

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I agree completely.

I saw Julie & Julia. I had no idea Julia Child was so fascinating. I only knew her from her TV show when I was a little kid. You could easily make a very good full length movie just about her, and Meryl Streep deserves yet another Oscar for her dead-on performance.

Julie Powel, on the other hand was worse than boring. She was annoying. Cloying. I wanted to smack her several times throughout the movie (and I am not normally a fan of smacking women). I could not possibly give a flying fuck about her cooking attempts, her blog, or her eventual novelty book. I kept hoping she'd get hit by a bus or something, so we could get back to watching the far more interesting Meryl Streep.

Posted by Reverse Polarity on September 8, 2009 at 4:12 PM

Don't be coy Mr. Constant, we're not mind readers. Which are your successful movies about writers?

Posted by Parsnip

on September 8, 2009 at 4:17 PM

@1 Really. Not to mention her boyfriend was just as whiny and boring as she was with an added level of jerkiness.

Its really too bad they did not just make a Julia Child movie. It would have been amazing.

Posted by giffy on September 8, 2009 at 4:23 PM

@2, one of them HAS to be Misery.

Posted by it's got a writer in it on September 8, 2009 at 4:23 PM

One of them is presumably The Shining.

Posted by Nathaniel Irons on September 8, 2009 at 4:25 PM

Oh noes, Stephen King joke collision.

Posted by Nathaniel Irons on September 8, 2009 at 4:27 PM

no, there is at least one movie that I know of that ends with a protagonist getting published that is well worth watching: "I Remember Mama"

Posted by michael strangeways

on September 8, 2009 at 4:37 PM

I'm going to go with "Stranger than Fiction". Despite my belief that Will Ferrell really, really needs to just stop, that was just a good metafilm.

Also Adaptation.

Posted by j.lee on September 8, 2009 at 4:50 PM

Gotta be more than two. How about "American Splendor"?

Posted by g on September 8, 2009 at 6:01 PM

Wonder Boys.

Posted by duckgirlie on September 8, 2009 at 6:13 PM

I don't know who summed up the movie this way "More Julia, a lot less Julie" but it was a pretty accurate review. Maybe they'll do a judicious bit of editing on the DVD and make it 90% Julia Childe biopic with just a touch of the non-whining moments of Julie.

Posted by yucca flower on September 8, 2009 at 7:32 PM

I read "My Life in France" over the summer, and totally agree that there should be a Julia pic. She and Paul Child were total hardasses; my only previous exposure was via her PBS shows as a kid which really did not do her life justice.

Too bad we only celebrate greatness shortly after it has departed.

Posted by Action Slacks on September 8, 2009 at 9:06 PM

Action Slacks, your comment is admirable (celebrating greateness after it's departed), but fortunately, not accurate.

Julia was loved by millions and was told so nearly every day of her life by ordinary people who had been touched and inspired by her talents. She was well aware of her standing in the culinary world and was proud of what she had achieved. From Wikipedia:

"She received the French Legion of Honor in 2000 and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003. Child also received honorary doctorates from Harvard University, Johnson & Wales University in 1995, her alma mater Smith College, Brown University in 1999, and several other universities."

I think it's great she's being celebrated now, and new generations are being introduced to her story and work.

And yes, she deserves her own film!

Posted by kellywilson on September 12, 2009 at 10:52 PM