Deeper Look into Julie & Julia (2009 film)

Analyzing the differences in the two main characters of Nora Ephron’s last film

I have a tender spot for Nora Ephron movies. I own many of them on DVD, which is proof of how much I’ve rewatched them and how important it is that I can access them without relying on a streaming service for availability.

My most watched Ephron films are Julie & Julia and You’ve Got Mail. Below their light and charming surface, Nora captures so well the feeling of unsettledness and treading of women who feel lost in their purpose (or careers) in the context of daily life, love, and friendships. I personally resonate with her frustration at the smallness of life, and the searching for more than what’s present.

Julie & Julia juxtaposes the journey of two characters in two different time periods. We are introduced to them when they both have moved to a new city for their husband’s jobs and are searching for something to do that will give them purpose, and also hopefully joy. That something turns out to be cooking — in the form of cooking school for Julia, and cooking from Julia’s cookbook for Julie. Along their journeys, they also aim to become published authors — for Julia, it’s for the book she worked hard on. For Julie, it’s for the blog she was writing. These are their similarities.

It wasn’t until recently that I stopped skipping over Julie’s scenes in the movie. Julie and Julia’s attitudes and presence are completely different from the other’s. Whereas Julia is overall buoyant and charming, Julie is perpetually sour and defeatist and unfailingly self-centered. Julie’s character turned me off for years until I began to appreciate the contrast that Ephron shows of these two characters and how relatable they are, especially Julie.

So, what are the differences between Julie and Julia?

I think it’s important to note here once again that they live in different times. Julia lives in a time where television is new and she looks to books for information whereas Julie is in a time when the self-published blog has newly entered the Internet arena. Because You’ve Got Mail’s plot dealt largely with the online chat’s influence on the times, I can’t help but wonder if Nora was making a statement in J&J on the up-and-coming blogging era.

Julie and her friend frequently make remarks about their friend Annabelle’s blog, who they vehemently dislike and are jealous of.

Julie: Do you know what Annabelle's doing now? 
Sarah told me. A blog.
  
Paul: Of what?
Julie: What do you mean "of what"? A blog of Annabelle. 
Of every thought that passes through her brain. 
Her stupid, vapid, insipid...

It’s after this conversation that Julie begins her own blog (“I could write a blog. I have thoughts!”) and soon she gets sucked up in her rise to blogging stardom. She makes frequent allusions to her readers in conversation and worries about what they will think when things go wrong behind-the-scenes. She falls into the allure of portraying her life in a certain way on the Internet. In her blog, she refers to her husband as a “saint” which he gets upset about as he should — in reality, neither of them is happy in their marriage whereas she’s presenting it online as wholesome.

Julie: My readers are gonna be really upset. They were so into it.

Paul: They'll live. Somehow, your readers will live.
Paul: And when this year's over, and I cannot wait until it is, your readers will somehow get on with their lives.
Julie: And I won't, is that what you're saying?
Paul: I don’t know. I have no idea. I mean, what’s gonna happen when you're no longer the center of the universe?
Paul: [It feels] like I'm living with a totally self-absorbed person who writes this stuff for a bunch of complete strangers.

Paul: And it's supposed to be a big adventure,
but it's not.

This blogging era initiated society into the strange land of online personalities, of influencers and mass readership, and, of course, the addiction to easy validation (through quantifiable clicks and comments).

While now spending free time passively looking at curated content from people that they know (no longer just limited to out-of-reach celebrities), the subconscious comparison to other seemingly more exciting lives and thus growing dissatisfaction with our own now seemingly boring and purposeless lives began to gain momentum.

Is Julie a result of the time that she is living in, where we are more obsessed with self-branding and accomplishments, than the actual enjoyment and fulfillment of the experience itself as shown by Julia?

Before she gets a following, Julie enjoys cooking and how it provides predictable, delicious results. After she gains a following, she isn’t shown to enjoy the act of cooking itself anymore, although she does consistently seem to enjoy how it builds her self-esteem when she is able to make hard things and also eventually finish a project — something she (and her mom) didn’t believe she could do. Julie is ravenous for anything that feeds her ego, from beginning to end.

In comparison, Julia falls madly in love with cooking. She forms her two close friends, Simone and Louisette, by their mutual love for cooking, and ends up falling into a book project that she becomes determined to finish. When the publication road gets rough, she reminds herself of why she is working on the book: to teach Americans how to cook. She has a mission, and it’s not for her ego.

Is Julie’s main difference from Julia her low self-esteem, insecurities, and lack of a personal mission greater than the self?

This was not where I thought this essay would end up but I’ll end by saying that I can relate to Nora’s Julie Powell. A product of my generation, I wonder if my constant comparison and insecurity-based narrative that I tell myself is a result of living in the time that I do and using the technologies in a way that feeds my inner demons. Like Julie, I admire Julia and want to be like her, too: full of perspective and optimistic resolve even when things don’t go as planned in life. Living my life not out of my insecurities and ego, but out of a zeal for the things I genuinely love.