Over the years film genres get reduced to their cliches, making each new film to arrive not terribly dissimilar to the ones that immediately preceding it. The most notable genres to fall prey to this are horror and the romantic comedy. Not too far behind those genres is the biopic. Yes, that's right. These people's lives are boiled down to the bare essence and the problem is that so many of these boiled down lives have very similar paths; just watch Ray and Walk the Line and you will see what I mean.

Filmmakers sometimes step outside the box and take an alternate route into these people's lives. One route is the avant-garde path taken for the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There. Another way is to do what Nora Ephron did with Julie & Julia, which was to bring two people's connected lives together, focusing on a specific portion of their respective lives. It is a different take that pays off.

Julie & Julia was adapted (from the book by Julie Powell) and directed by Nora Ephron. The filmmaker, who normally resides in the romantic comedy (having made her touchstone with Sleepless in Seattle) has stepped into the biopic genre and crafted a fine film. It is not a great film; it is not a terribly in-depth film, but it is definitely a crowd pleasing film — and one that keeps its focus squarely on the two primary subjects. The film never wavers from the two women. To that end, the surrounding characters are more small role players than full fledged characters. Had Julie and Julia's writing been more well rounded, the film might  have been more interesting, but I suspect it would be at the expense being a crowd pleaser.

The story begins with Julie Powell (Amy Adams). She is happily married, but living an unhappy life in an apartment over a pizza place: working in a cubicle and taking calls about insurance claims related to 9/11, while watching her friends' careers go nowhere but up. Despite the loving support of her husband Eric (Chris Messina), Julie feels lost, never completing the novel she's been working on, and feeling like a failure. Then inspiration strikes and she decides to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking: all 524 recipes in 365 days. She would proceed on this quest and document each step in a blog.

Article Author: Chris Beaumont

Christopher Beaumont spends much of his time writing about music and movies when he isn't indulging in them. He is always ready to talk about his favorite form of entertainment and offer up recommendations. Follow: Twitter and Tumblr. Visit: Critical Outcast. …

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