The Mirror That is Julie & Julia

As I have mentioned before, I have now seen Julie & Julia twice. I loved it both times and I would now like to discuss what this movie has brought to my life.

The first thing I'd like to note about this movie is how it turns a mirror on us bloggers in a serious way.

I know that everyone has a narcissistic streak in them from time to time, but this makes us look like ego maniacs. Maybe we are, and, maybe we are.

The character, Julie, is stuck in a rut. She hates her job, feels stagnate and wants to spice up her life by rejuvenating her love of writing with a purpose. She challenges herself, but also challenges the world around her to deal with her obsession with Julia child, her complaints and her single mindedness. I think it's okay to have obsessions and devotion to projects. I don't really care for how whiney Julie is, but I guess that's just because I have my own rut I have to get out of right now.

I think I felt too much empathy at times with both Julie and Julia. I felt like I could understand the frustrations of blogging and tackling a vast world of "do I have readers?" "Does anyone read this beyond my parents?" "Do I matter in the greater scheme of things?" I also felt the joys of realizing you do have readers and people do care. Even if it's not the closest of kin, but a random devotee who also shares the love of a particular subject.

I felt empathy with the character of Julia Child. She had to work incredibly hard for what she wanted. She was someone to admire, breaking through in an environment that A) Didn't like women and B) Especially didn't like American women. She was a hard ass. Though this made it hard for Julie--spoiler alert!--in the end, because the ideal of Julia didn't match the high standards of the real Julia

As bloggers, we definitely refer to ourselves a lot. Some people accept this and some think it's because we can't get over ourselves. I like to think that, yes, I do think I'm God's gift to the world. Thank you for noticing, but also that in order for something to be perceived as "opinion" it has to be stated as one's own. I have to posess my words in the first person, otherwise it's taken as my putting words in your mouth.

i.e.

"...otherwise you think I'm putting words in your mouth."

You've probably noticed the amount of italics used in this post is abnormally higher than those used in other posts. I would like to credit this to the voice in my head that now sounds just like Julia Child. Mery Streep NAILS the accent. Both of my parents told me, on separate occasions, "Close your eyes and it's like she's [Meryl Streep] is her [Julia Child]!"

I think it's not a bad thing to look introspectively and find out how we can all become better people, whether it includes butter, is up to you.

The other actors, Stanley Tucci and Chris Messina, held up their own. Tucci and Streep showed us all how the job is done. I just love him. I have yet to see a movie where I don't love a character he plays. Chris Messina-- I could see him picking up some more films because of this. He was a relief to Amy Adam's character, Julie. He provided the ground that she needed, the base line of reality that she had to recognize. She had to see how good she still had it and that not everything is ideal; he provided it.

There were smaller nuances that I found refreshing as well:

• The French ladies--good and evil--were all fabulous.
• The Chef at Le Cordon Bleu looked like Chef Boyardee. LMAO.
• The food. THE food. THE FOOD!
• They used the phrase "Boning a duck." 1000 times (exaggeration but it was used a lot.) and every time I wanted to giggle because it's dirty. But I didn't. I really didn't.
• The music.

I heard a ton of people saying at the end of the film, "I want to go right home and cook!" I found myself saying, "I want to go home and blog!"

See how much I learned.