- Julia Child's story of her start in the cooking profession is intertwined with blogger Julie Powell's 2002 challenge to cook all the recipes in Child's first book.
- Julia Child and Julie Powell - both of whom wrote memoirs - find their lives intertwined. Though separated by time and space, both women are at loose ends... until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.—Columbia Pictures
- In 1949, Julia Child is in Paris, the wife of a diplomat, wondering how to spend her days. She tries hat making, bridge, and then cooking lessons at Cordon Bleu. There she discovers her passion. In 2002, Julie Powell, about to turn 30 and underemployed with an unpublished novel, decides to cook her way through "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in a year and to blog about it. We go back and forth between these stories of two women learning to cook and finding success. Sympathetic, loving husbands support them both, and friendships, too, add zest.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
- In 1949, the diplomat Paul Child and his wife Julia are expatriated to France. In Paris, the bored Julia decides to learn how to cook and later to write a book teaching American housewives how to cook French cuisine. In 2002, the frustrated secretary of a government agency Julie and her husband, the editor Eric Powell, move to an apartment in Queens over a pizzeria. Julie is an aspirant writer and loves to cook and her husband suggests her to write a blog to spend her leisure time. Julie decides to write a blog about cooking and commits herself to cook the 534 recipes written by Julia Child in her book in 365 days.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- In 1949, American diplomat Paul Child starts a four year posting in Paris. His wife, the physically imposing Julia Child, loves Paris life, especially the food which she finds a revelation, but has no idea what to do with her time. She decides to parlay that love of the French cuisine by taking a cooking class. Believing she is not at the beginner level, she is able to convince the snooty head of the Cordon Bleu to enroll in a class for aspiring professional chefs. Her fellow students, all young men, see her solely as a bored housewife, so she tries to prove them wrong by cooking with what she considers fearlessness. Julia eventually meets Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, who are working on among other things an English language French cookbook, which Julia would herself like as she is unable to find such. She eventually becomes a collaborator on that book, which she wants to make accessible for the average American. The book has a difficult road to publication, if it gets published at all, which is made all the more difficult with Paul's subsequent postings and Julia moving away from Paris. In 2002, thirty year old Julie Powell is floundering in her life. She wanted to be a writer, but works as a low level bureaucrat in a thankless job for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, dealing with the sad and/or angry calls from people affected by 9/11. Although she regularly has what she calls her "cobb salad" luncheons with them, she neither really likes or understands her Amherst College "friends", whose lives have all turned out the way they wanted. And she reluctantly moves to an apartment over a pizzeria in Queens from Brooklyn largely so that her magazine editor husband Eric Powell can be closer to his job and they can save money, of which they don't have much. Beyond her time with Eric, Julie's only sanctuary is cooking. To find some meaning in her life, Julie, on Eric's encouragement, decides to write a blog, the topic she chooses being her year long journey to cook the 524 recipes in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". Julie is determined to complete this project, project completion which has been sorely lacking in her life. It becomes the primary focus in her life, which contains its frequent meltdowns, which Eric is unsure if he can handle as part of this life. What keeps Julie largely going is the spirit of Julia, who she considers perfect, who she hopes knows about and understands her journey, and who she would someday like to meet. As Julie's blog becomes more well known, she also tries to keep true to the project for the sake of her readers, and also hopes it gets noticed by a publisher so that she can be a published author as was her college dream.—Huggo
- In 2002, Julie Powell (Amy Adams) is a young writer with an unpleasant job at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's call center, where she answers telephone calls from victims of the September 11 attacks and members of the general public complaining about the LMDC's controversial plans for rebuilding the World Trade Center. To do something she enjoys, she decides to cook every recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) by Julia Child (Meryll Streep) in one year; Powell decides to write a blog to motivate herself and document her progress. Woven into the story of Powell's time in Queens in the early 2000s is the story of Julia's time in Paris throughout the 1950s, where she attends Le Cordon Bleu to learn French cooking and begins collaborating on a book about French cooking for American housewives.
The plot highlights similarities in the women's challenges. Julia lives in a plush Parisian apartment, but Julie has to move into a cramped Queens 900 sq ft dump so that her husband can be close to his work. Julie's friends are all successful in their careers. One of her friends interviews her for her magazine article & when it comes out it makes Julie look like a total loser. A person who started a novel, temped for 8 yrs, gave up & now works in a cubicle trying to help people with the after effects off 911. Julie's husband understands her frustration at work & helps her cultivate her hobby of cooking by challenging her to complete the Julia Childs cook book in 1 yr & to start blogging about the same under her "Julie/Julia Project".
In flashback we see how Julia was happy in Paris & loved French food, but was bored & how her husband encouraged her to write a book about French cooking for Americans as there are no French cookbooks in English at the time. Julia joins a professional cooking class & works very very hard to gain her expertise & respect from fellow students. She also starts teaching French cooking with 2 partners who are writing a French cookbook in English.
Julie starts her blog & slowly gains a steady following of readers who follow her exploits of following Julia's cookbook almost 50 yrs after she wrote it. What starts as a hobby turns into an obsession when Julie hits the difficult recipes which she cant afford as the ingredients are too expensive and the technique to cook them are too sophisticated. Both women receive much support from their husbands, except when Powell's husband becomes fed up with her excessive devotion to her hobby and leaves her for a short time.
Julia's single sister Dorothy visits her in Paris. Julia helps her meet eligible bachelors & Dorothy finds the love of her life & gets married. That is the happiest day off Julia's life. She is a little sad when Dorothy falls preggers which only reminds her that she has been unsuccessful in having a baby after years of trying.
Julia's partners learn that their publisher doesn't think their book would sell in France & asks them to customize it for the Americans. They ask Julia to take charge of the book. Julia's work is delayed due to the several shifting due to the transfer of her husband, who works as a cultural attache for the US Govt. At one point, he is also called back to US to be investigated for being a communist, but is exonerated. Julie's husband leaves her after one of her meltdowns & Julie realizes that Julia never lost her temper because of food. Julie apologizes to bring her husband back.
Although Child's book is rejected by Houghton Mifflin upon her visit to the US, it is accepted and published by Alfred A. Knopf. Eventually, Powell's blog is featured in a story published in The New York Times, after which her project begins to receive the attention of journalists, literary agents, publishers, and a dismissive response from Child herself. The last scene shows Powell and her husband visiting Child's kitchen at the Smithsonian Institution and Child in the same kitchen receiving a first print of her cookbook and celebrating the event with her husband.
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