Friday, March 29, 2024

Movie Review (TIFF 2021): ‘Julia’ is a Thorough, Passionate Documentary on the Life of Julia Child


Directors: Julie Cohen and Betsy West

Synopsis:  Documentary chronicling the life and career of celebrity chef Julia Child.

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Documentarians Julie Cohen and Betsy West must have found it impossible to follow up their 2018 Oscar-nominated RBG, a documentary about the gigantic force of nature, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. An icon, feminist trailblazer, passionate, career-focused woman who enjoyed a happy marriage, Ginsberg became a celebrity not for her beauty but for her brains and changed not only her profession but society as a whole. How do you—or can you—follow that? There certainly couldn’t be another story to tell as interesting as hers, right?

As it turns out, there have been many more than just one trailblazing American woman in the past fifty years and it didn’t take long for Cohen and West to settle on telling the story of Julia Child, the original American celebrity chef who revolutionized not only the way Americans ate after World War II, but altered the landscape of popular culture, paving the way for reality television long before there was ever such a thing. While Child may not have changed the path of history the way Ginsberg did, Child certainly inspired and encouraged American women to enjoy cooking, not as an obligation, but as a genuine source of pleasure. Revolutionaries take all shapes and sizes, whether it’s the diminutive RBG or the 6’3” Child, heroes are defined not by their stature, but by their contribution.

As the child of a mother who was a Julia Child devotee, I can attest first-hand to her scope of influence, as my mother would spend hours in the kitchen, perfecting dishes, her dog-eared copies of Child cookbooks always on hand. It’s impossible to overstate Child’s popularity in the ‘60s and ‘70s, through the success of the cookbook that she co-wrote, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and her PBS cooking show, The French Chef, which aired from 1963-1966 and then again from 1970-1973. In the documentary, Julia, Cohen and West craft a well-structured journey through Child’s life that gives the audience a sense of who this woman was and why she became so popular. But, more than anything, Julia paints a portrait of a woman who took charge of her own life, followed her own passions and took ownership of her own destiny.

Utilizing letters, journal entries, family photographs, and recordings made of Child during her long career, Julia gives the audience an intimate look into Child’s life, from her comfortable, conservative upbringing in Massachusetts to her military service during World War II, to her long and happy marriage to her husband, Paul, and, of course, her lifelong love affair with food, especially French food. The filmmakers give us a complete sense of who Child was, taking their time to tell the story of where Child came from, not just focusing on who she became. A fame that was borne out of the Camelot of the Kennedys in the early ‘60s, Child capitalized on a nation’s desire for change, for discovery, for embracing new and exciting things. Cohen and West lean less on interviews with those who knew her to explain what Child was thinking, and allows the recordings and footage to do the bulk of the storytelling, which is effective and engaging.

But far beyond the incredible chef and the captivating screen presence Julia Child was, she was a woman who lived the life she wanted. Resisting every expectation of her, she did what she wanted, followed the career she wanted, married the man she wanted, and lived where she wanted. She would not compromise, was a perfectionist, and somewhat of a contrarian, a feminist icon who was devoted to her husband and made sure she was home every night to cook him dinner. She was a brilliant businesswoman who put PBS on the map and cookbooks on the bestseller list. Every celebrity chef who now is a household name owes their career to Julia Child, the original.

Cohen and West do let Child be the central figure of their film, but the supporting role that food plays in telling her story is unmistakable. Close-ups of food, slow-motion camera sweeps of food being prepared, cooked, boiled, roasted, chopped, seared, sauteed—will literally make your mouth water. While not a film for vegans, as close-ups of raw meat, poultry and fish are ubiquitous, there is a beautifully delicate dance that plays out with the stylistic choices the filmmakers make, as if trying to seduce the audience—or at least their tastebuds.

In the same year of another documentary about a hugely popular celebrity chef, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, Julia takes a far less philosophical approach to its muse, allowing Child’s words and craft to simply reflect her genuine affection for her audience, and her real desire to spread the love of cooking to the world. “Food is love,” Julia herself explains in the film. And Julia is indeed a love letter to not only food, but to the icon who turned it into an art form.

Grade: A

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