JULIE & JULIA (Sky DramaRom)
I last saw these two ladies on the film Doubt, which I'm still doubting to this day. But should you doubt this film?
I shall start with an OFFICIAL synopisis from Rotten Tomatoes.
A woman verging on thirty and frustrated in a temp secretary job takes on a yearlong culinary quest: cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." She chronicles her trials and tribulations in a blog that catches on with the food crowd.
Yes, the premise does sound quite odd. Why would Amy Adams spontaneously decide, "I'm going to cook 524 recipes." She doesn't even round the number down to 500, she takes an exact value. So the story follows Julie living in Queens, NY who writes a blog about making Julia's Childs recipes after she becomes "frustrated". Meryl Streep plays Julia Child in a unique captivating performance which TBH kept me from the doldrums of limbo. It's an easy, relaxing film to follow no complications, it's certainly no Inception but personally I thought all the Julie segments were quite pointless. I don't care if you have 256 recipes to go and why do you dress like Julia Child, you should be having FUN?! Meryl Streep is simply hilarious and genius as Julia Child, such a boistrous soul she is. We see Julia cope with the hard confinements of 50s life and her struggle to get her cookbook published. Both women are connected by their dual joy of cooking and it's this connection which flavours the film.
It's a harmless film brought down by a weak plot but strengthened by the performances of the central characters. Make sure you're eating food while watching this. You will get a bit peckish. But I'm not inspired to bone a duck after this (take from that what you will you naughty people).
6/10
TOAST (BBC1)
This was one of the BBC's christmas highlights; the biopic of chef Nigel Slater, I hate his cooking show If I'm being brutally honest but I thought I'd give this a go as it starred the wonderful Helena Bonham-Carter (who wasn't working on a Tim Burton film for once).
OFFICIAL synopsis time: Toast is the ultimate nostalgia trip through everything edible in sixties Britain. Based on the heart-wrenching bitter-sweet story of food writer Nigel Slater's childhood, Toast is a delicious retrieval of the tastes and smells that a young boy associates with his journey into adulthood. (oohhh lar-de-dar)
I loved it. I LOVED IT. It was a brilliantly crafted piece of work and the director did a fantastic job. Nigel's mums death was dealt with very sensitively and beautifully written. But slight overreaction "I hope you die" because there was no mince for the mince pies, why do you even like mince pies? Jeez, children! But in all seriousness, great acting on both parts. The mum did look a bit like Lyn from Neighbours I thought.
