August 18, 2010 – Here I sit. In front of my oversized, over-indulgent flat screen television (thanks to my electronically-obsessed husband), watching, for the third time, a feisty little feature – Julie & Julia.
The first time I popped this film into our DVD player, I sat snuggled up in bed, mourning the escape of our beloved family cat, Libby. She had slipped out during Christmas dinner the night before, and after a sleepless night of awaiting her arrival home (to no avail), I settled in for a film I had wanted to see since first spying the trailer some time before. There was something beautifully organic about the snippets; I knew I would feel at home with the storyline.
And, during that very first viewing, I did. As a cheeky writer who, other than in front of her laptop, is most comfortable in the kitchen, who is filled with hysterical idiosyncrasies, fell a little crazy in love with the wonderment that is the relationship of Julie to Julia.
Then… the ending. My eyes fell sad. My heart broke. In fact, it took me months before I accepted the finality, that more often than not, life doesn’t grant Golden Tickets to Utopia.
The second time around, I didn’t watch with that same hope that in the end, Julia Child would ultimately show up on the doorstep of Julie Powell, iconic pearls in place, iconic nasally voice wafting through the air, fulfilling my want, my need for a Happily-Ever-After. Instead I saw it as a tribute… to both an amazing Chef of butter-laden French food and a writer who had previously lost her way. It was in this that I saw what I had originally been searching for, but in a less than obvious way. The happy ending wasn’t meant to be the meeting of the minds of Julie and Julia, but rather in overcoming the obstacles they each faced through the journeys of their professional and personal lives.
It took me some time to realize it, but once I let go of the clichés so typically associated with fact-based-stories-turned-Hollywood-productions, I found the absolute beauty of Julie & Julia. From beginning to buttery end.