This is the Subway station Julie uses in the film!

I had heard a lot of negative, well, let’s say not-positive feedback about this movie from people around me, so I wasn’t expecting it to be great. But it was! I thought Julie & Julia had a really fun and moving story with wonderful actors to portray interesting characters. I know that it is a cliché for an acting student to say that Meryl Streep is one of their favorite actresses but she is just fantastic. In every single film. I have to admit to not knowing Julia Child before watching this movie (I don’t know if this is because I grew up in Europe for the most part or due to pure ignorance), but Meryl Streep created such a vibrant character that I just had to “youtube” her after the cinema.

Watching Julie & Julia felt a bit like someone had made a movie about me (or us, since my boyfriend felt the same way). I am not aspiring to become a cook or a writer but I did feel very connected to the characters. And it wasn’t just my love for Paris or French food.

First of all, I love cooking and I love eating even more, so when Paul Child asks Julia what she really likes to do and she answers “Eat!” the movie had me captured already. I also thought it funny that Julie and her husband live, literally, around the corner from where we just moved to in Long Island City. Their subway stop (in the movie) is five minutes away from our house!

Julie’s blogging felt strangely familiar as well. Not that I am on a mission or have a point or a deadline or anything, but I could really feel with Julie when she got her first comment on her blog…and it was from her mother. And then the first time she got a comment from someone she didn’t know! What a feeling! I never experienced the joy of 53 comments on one post though…

After leaving the cinema we stopped at a Barnes and Nobles to check out Julia Child’s cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and were shocked to hear that it wasn’t only sold out at the store, the publishers don’t have any more copies. Crazy!

Well, I highly recommend Julie & Julia to any food or movie lover and it definitely deserves to get a MovieCat Award!