This Recipe Needs More Julia

If I could change one thing about Julie & Julia it would be this: scrap the whole idea and just make My Life In France. I found myself infatuated with Julia Child and, well, her life in France. Conversely, I couldn't have possibly cared less about Julie Powell and her blogging (pfffft, bloggers). I've only skimmed the book Julie & Julia, but it feels like way too much was fabricated to make her life mirror Julia Child's. Or maybe the similarities aren't much of a stretch to begin with, therefore, it feels unnecessary to point them out. Now, there's no real harm in taking liberties and stretching truths to make the story work. And Powell doesn't try to deny elements of her story being fictitious. But it doesn't help the story. All it manages to do is make half of the movie incredibly boring. "Oh, that's cute! That's totally what Julia was doing in the previous scene. And now Julie is doing it!" To put my feelings into layman's terms, I've included this visual aid:


So to boil it down, I loved the My Life In France bits (and Meryl) and Zzzzzzz'd the Julie & Julia portion. Why they decided to fuse these two books together? Who knows. Someone may know. But who?