Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: JULIA [Denver Film Festival 2021]

The life of an icon is always hard to distill down. Many of these people are ordinary humans sometimes drawn to extraordinary circumstance. Or sometimes fate simply had a different approach for them. In "Julia", the path of trailblazer Julia Child is laid bare, again in a texture of circumstance. She grew up well-to-do to a conservative Republican father/family in Pasadena, California. But her sense of adventure led her in World War II to a calling as a typist working for the OSS in the Far East. She wasn't a spy but she learned alot and she met her future husband Paul there. Their interaction seems combative at first but they came together. That time is likely a story in itself but just moves here to set her journey up. '

After they get married and return to Pasadena, Paul gets a posting for his government job in France (specifically Paris). This is where Child falls in love with food and enrolls at the Cordon Bleu Culinary School, a sole female in a male dominated field but in a space where the GI Bill paid for the men. It is not made clear if it paid for hers as well. Nonetheless this foray gets her interested in French cuisine. Most of these elements in this time are done by photographs and modern up close makings of some of the French dishes as well as footage from Paris in the late 40s. This is where her famous "Mastering The Art Of French Cooking" first took shape with some local female collaborators. But the rejections and progressions of how that came together are distinctly normal and human in a bigger sense. Her path wasn'r preordained. The aspect of how Paul lost his job is interesting but also speaks to maybe something deeper which is never quite discussed or touched upon here. They also never had any children. This was a different time but also allows for some reflection. Her book finally got published 10-12 years later after they had moved to Cambridge in Massachusetts. This is where her cooking show took shape simply by coincidence.

The long takes and format in her initial show on public television became a matter of necessity. The fact that WGBH in Boston was its origin is cool too since they also were the ones who came to bear with Ken Burns ultimately. The path of how Child came to be famous is beautifully shown through the earlier shows all the way through to her final years. She was the first celebrity chef per se who learned how to use TV but she was relatable and could ad lib. She also came into it at over 50 when most women at times with TV age out and she kept going. She did meet resistance as she grew older but the film does show in a roundabout way her stubbornness but also old school values. Her backing of planned parenthood and then an eventual aspect of fundraising for AIDS research is interesting but also reflexive. The doc shows Child was not always right but her heart mostly was in the right place. Her relationship with Paul is key but you never hear his voice per se which is interesting but is still the right choice. "Julia" is an interesting look at an icon who didn't mean to be but captured the imagination but also funny bone of America in a key time. She also changed the way (in a major way) of how we looked at fresh ingredients and cooking. A-

By Tim Wassberg