Julie & Julia (2009)

There have been plenty of movies made about instances when ‘worlds collide,’ but I don’t recall ever seeing a film that weaves two true stories together like Julie & Julia. Unique as its dual biopic approach may be, this split biography becomes unbalanced both in time allotment and level of interest. While it may not exactly be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, Julie & Julia isn’t quite as delicious as advertised.

The main component of the film focuses on Julie Powell (Amy Adams), a call center worker for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. The year is 2002, not long after the September 11 attacks. Looking for some stress relief, Julie decides to cook every single recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking within one year’s time. To help hold herself accountable, she starts a blog about her journey, which develops an unexpected following. The self-inflicted pressure of reaching her goal, along with the assumed pressure of her readers’ expectations, leads to some tense moments in her marriage.

The other component of the film focuses on Powell’s muse- Julia Child. These scenes are set in the 1950s when the Child’s were living in France. Julia (Meryl Streep), bored with day-to-day life enrolls in the famous Le Cordon Bleu to learn French cooking. The experience leads her to collaborate on said cookbook targeted at American housewives. She struggles to earn respect for both herself in the male-dominated profession of cooking as well as the validity and marketability of her book in the eyes of publishers.

The main focus of the film is on Powell and her journey through Child’s book. It’s current, features a popular young star in Adams, and there is love and drama that everyday people can relate to. The only problem is that the average person couldn’t give a crap about Julie Powell. You may have heard of her book by chance but she is little more than someone who found success and landed a book deal thanks to a blog. Sure, the struggles she endured in cooking and saving her marriage are her own, but the only reason anyone would be drawn into her story is because everyone (okay, maybe not those in Generation Z) has heard of Julia Child. Powell may not have intended to use Julia Child’s work to become famous but she certainly owes much of her success to the association with Child.

Therein lies the downfall of the film. If you don’t find Powell interesting, you’ll only have roughly half of a film to enjoy. The film’s target demographic is women, who are usually much less cynical and will probably enjoy watching Powell’s struggle to keep herself together as a working woman and wife. But our culture as a whole has grown more cynical towards faux celebrities who pop up online or on TV despite having little or no actual talent to speak of. Powell was fortunate that her success came before the onslaught of relative nobodies blogging about specific issues or topics and making a killing off of it. This movie, however, came after that wave and is thus open to such criticism.

If you are able to keep Powell’s setting in context, though, you probably won’t have that difficult a time taking it for what it is- a puff piece with a little drama mixed in. After her blog becomes a hit, she develops a bit of a responsibility complex in that she feels a somewhat imagined amount of pressure from her readers to stay on target with her one-year plan. She begins to devote a little too much time to her blog, which understandably irks her husband. Having been involved with a minor web phenomenon myself for a few years, I can understand where Powell is coming from with her need to fulfill audience expectations. But she commits a cardinal sin by letting this perceived pressure control her. Frustrating as it is to watch, it was nice to see they didn’t gloss over this issue.

The Julia Child scenes definitely steal the show. Meryl Streep nails her character’s mannerisms and eccentric voice. Her performance is so spot-on that I don’t think anyone will be able to produce a satisfactory, full-length biopic of Child. It’s a shame that she wasn’t cast for a full biopic of Child but the parts of her life that Julie & Julia focuses on are the key points. We see her struggle in two very significant arenas but, since her name has become legendary, we don’t require much more than what made the final cut.

More of the film focuses on Powell, which is fine (the title is Julie & Julia after all). It’s just ironic that, try as they might to play up the modern success tale, the combined weight of the legendary Julia Child and the stellar Meryl Streep completely overpower the up-and-comer Powell and the then relatively new Adams. If anything, you would want it to be the other way around- get a big name leading lady to make Powell significant and important while perhaps finding a solid, pedigreed supporting actress to create a star-making performance out of the Child role.

Inventive in its approach, Julie & Julia falters in the execution. The Julia Child sequences are rich with Hollywood biopic glory while the Julie Powell segments occasionally border on Lifetime movie of the week territory. The end result is a cinematic confection that’s sweet enough to get a recommendation.

RATING: 3 out of 5

It's Complicated (2009)

First and foremost, I must say that I find it weirdly amusing that I am posting a review for a divorce-comedy on my third wedding anniversary. That might actually be a pretty good preface to this film, actually. Funny as it is in some places, It’s Complicated is a film made for a specific audience in mind. I am not part of that audience, which probably explains why I didn’t enjoy this film as much as some may.

After being divorced for ten years, Jane (Meryl Streep) and Jake (Alec Baldwin) are brought together by their son’s college graduation. Old flames are rekindled, even though Jake is now married to a much younger woman, and an affair is born. Jake loves it and pursues spur-of-the-moment flings with Jane whenever possible but Jane knows inside that, even though they loved each other at one time, their current actions just aren’t right.

Amidst the affair, Jane is also falling for Adam (Steve Martin), an architect hired to remodel her home. Despite recently getting divorced, Adam opens himself up to Jane and mutual attraction develops. Jake and Jane try their best to keep their affair a secret but fail to do so in amusing ways. The fallout is unexpected and forces the two to grow up and think about their actions like rational, mature adults.

When the stars of a comedy are Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin, you know the film is geared towards an older audience. Add to this the film’s subject matter, divorce, and you’ve all but completely alienated me from any target demographic. Fortunately, comedy has no boundaries and good comedy can be appreciated by anyone, no matter how disconnected they may be from the material and characters.

There are plenty of laughs to be had with It’s Complicated but I can’t help but feel that the film is funnier and more meaningful for those who have experienced a divorce. Most, if not all, of the subtleties that divorcees will pick up on may be lost on the rest of us. This explains why the film seemed too stop-and-go for my liking. Divorce isn’t a funny subject, so the film does a lot of bouncing back and forth between the hilarious antics of the unfaithful Jake and the concern and contemplation of Jane.

For some, myself included, Jack’s behavior is a little over-the-top. It’s clear that Alec Baldwin is having a blast with his character but his mid-life crisis-driven shenanigans fail to be age-appropriate at times. No matter how passionate they may be, most 50-somethings don’t throw themselves around like he does. Then again, we are in movie land here and comedy wouldn’t be comedy if there weren’t at least a few outrageous moments that aren’t likely to happen in real life.

The supporting players of It’s Complicated are adequate but forgettable. Steve Martin plays a straight-laced character for a change. This is refreshing because, let’s face it, he’s no spring chicken and most of his films in the past decade have proven that audiences aren’t buying any more of his physical shtick. For the younger crowd, The Office’s John Krasinski is thrown in as Jake and Jane’s son-in-law. He has a witty sense of humor and is also the first to discover his in-laws’ canoodling.

Aside from these two, the film is devoid of any other widely known stars. This is good, because it leaves plenty of screen time and space for its leads. It could be bad though, if you aren’t a big fan of Baldwin or Streep. The lack of multiple stars also helps feed the duo the lion’s share of the best lines and scenes. The filmmakers are just banking on moviegoers’ familiarity of divorce and the appeal of Baldwin and Streep. It’s a gamble that pays off pretty well, because even if you don’t care for Alec Baldwin, just about everyone admires Meryl Streep on some level.

On the whole, It’s Complicated is par for the course. It makes you laugh, it makes you squirm, and it has plenty of those awe-shucks family moments. It tries a little too hard sometimes to be funny but it never really tries to break away from predictable, formulaic humor. It might be worth a look but it will depend entirely on your taste in comedy and actors.

RATING: 3 out of 5

Mama Mia! (2008)

Oh, the modern movie-musical. It seems that this genre has been hit or miss for quite some time. This is easy to understand because it is very easy go wrong with adapting a popular Broadway hit. You can make the film too much like the stage production and appear stagey and gimmicky or you can take too many artistic liberties and risks, drawing the ire of loyalists and getting “too weird” for general audiences. Somewhere in the middle lies the elusive perfect combination of the two. Mama Mia! does not fall into any of these categories.

The subject matter of Mama Mia! is tame stuff when compared to some of the more dramatic productions Broadway has churned out in the past. Young Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) is getting married and she wants her father to walk her down the aisle. There is just one small problem with this- she doesn’t know who her father is. After snooping through her mother’s old diary, she narrows her search down to three possible candidates and invites all of them to her wedding in the hopes of sorting it out before the ceremony without her mother finding out. The men arrive earlier than expected and are surprised to learn that they are all possibly the bride’s father. Sophie’s mother (Meryl Streep) is equally surprised when she is confronted with her three former lovers.

All of this is set to the disco-tastic music of ABBA. Some songs work better than others but, on the whole, it’s rather evident that the songs were inserted around the story or the story written specifically with a song in mind. Some of the musical numbers feel more forced than others and the musical as a whole feels more manufactured than organic. Such seems to be the case with so-called ‘jukebox musicals.’ Interestingly enough, two former members of ABBA wrote the stage musical. This solidifies my belief that musicians should stick to what they’re best at.

To be fair, Mama Mia! isn’t a bad musical. In fact, it’s good to the point of entertaining you with jokes and songs aplenty. The downside is that this is a very safe production. It rarely makes you think and doesn’t make much of a statement about anything. Movie-musicals don’t necessarily have to do any of these things but I enjoy it when they do. Mama Mia! is pure sugar frosting. Nothing dynamic; nothing powerful. Just a cute, harmless puff piece that occupies less than two hours of your time.

Seyfried is charming as Sophie and really portrays the innocence of the character well. Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård and Colin Firth provide plenty of give and take humor as Sophie’s three befuddled potential fathers. As long as one of these three is on screen, Mama Mia! is at its funniest. Meryl Streep works as Sophie’s quasi-scatter brained mother but her two friends (Julie Walters and Christine Baranski) have a tendency to go over the top. Maybe I feel this way because I am a man and don’t appreciate catty, corny female humor as much as others, but the women of Mama Mia! had me rolling my eyes more than rolling on the floor.

Simply put, you could do a lot worse than Mama Mia! It gets the job done in that it entertains you and doesn’t drag on in too many places. This easy, breezy aspect comes at a price though- the film never really leaves its mark on you. Fun and forgettable is fine because it is fun. But it is still forgettable.

RATING: 3 out of 5