Julie and Julia

I read the book and couldn't wait to see the movie.
I had no idea I would weep through much of it.
If I had only one movie to take to the island this might indeed be it. I love food movies, but this is much more than a food movie. It's like An Affair to Remember (the one w/ Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr) meets Babette's Feast. Only different.
I think Nora Ephron nailed this. Just like I thought she nailed it in Heartburn, one of my other favorite movies.
This is a love movie on all kinds of levels. Certainly food, but more fundamentally the joy of life. Of relationships. Husbands and wives. Sisters. Friends and the bone deep pleasure in food. Its preparation. Its mystery. Its chemistry. Its soul-satisfying goodness and the joy of sharing a meal with friends and family.
My friend and colleague, Karen Fernau, admitted that she too wept almost without restraint when she saw the movie and vowed that she was going to end her relationship with low-fat Mediterranean diet and embrace butter. And that she was going to live each day with much more joy than she had allowed herself.
It was that kind of sweet, sweet movie.
At the end of the movie, they applauded in the Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, movie theater where I saw this. I didn't really notice because I was so transported to the world that Julia Childs created with her husband, Paul.
I think as much as this movie celebrates French cooking with its butter and its sauces and its heart-stopping flavors, it also celebrates marriage. Soul-satisfying, deeply known to another marriage.
And it made me weep in tender appreciation.
(The critics are right. Don't go to this movie hungry. Get the medium-size popcorn at least.)