If you haven't yet cultivated a love of food movies, then maybe they are for you, or maybe the are not -- but you have to take them in as a genre to really get it. From Tampopo (1985) and Big Night (1996); Chocolat (2000) and Tortilla Soup (2001), to Julie and Julia, food movies are about capturing a feeling, a bon vivant slice of life where life and love circulate around lushly shot foods of all kinds.

I also felt that the message of the story arc is a powerful one -- I think perhaps many of the viewers are just too young to really get the full impact of the story, and falsely interpret the Julie character as hysterical or unlikeable. But when a person is trying to find themselves, at a much older age than is customary, and surrounded in addition by successful people, it can be soul destroying. The fact that Julia Child did not start cooking until she was already 40, but rose to become one of the most influential chefs of all time in a time period when women were practically invisible is very inspiring to anyone still trying to find their niche at an older age. I know many people that age that want desperately to try and do/learn something new, and find themselves told constantly by society "your life is over, don't bother. You are too old to do something new or reinvent yourself."

I did not feel like this was a sweet, mind-numbing, drama-less piece. Did it have action sequences, or hard core drama? No, of course not. The movie's pacing is slow and mimics the pacing of the story, a day by day ordinary existence that is highlighted at the day's meal, a typical food movie structure. But the depth and sense of character development are there for those willing to lose themselves in the story. As I said earlier, food movies are definitely an acquired taste, but they accomplish something I usually only find in a European foreign film, the sense of a real life lived day by day, as we all do.