Lessons Learned From the Movie "Julie and Julia"

by Kevin Gardner

In the late 1940s, American-born Julia Child attended the prestigious Cordon Bleu cooking school in France. Wanting people in her home country to be able to appreciate what she had learned, she wrote an influential book called "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." A critical success and nationwide bestseller, the book made Child a household name and paved the way for her to host her own cooking show, where she became a presence in the lives of Americans across the country. 

In 2005, Julie Powell was a young New Yorker in a dead-end job who set out to prepare all the recipes in Child's book. She chronicled the life-changing experience in her own book "Julie and Julia," published in 2005. In 2009, "Julie and Julia" was adapted into a movie starring the venerable Meryl Streep as Child and then-rising star Amy Adams, almost unrecognizable in a pixie hairdo, as Powell. The following are enduring life lessons from this affirmational film. 

Do Things for Yourself

Julia Child didn't wait around for cookie delivery Salt Lake City. She wanted to learn how to cook fine dishes so, with the support of her husband (portrayed in the movie by Stanley Tucci), she went all the way to France to study at one of the top cooking schools in the world. Similarly, Julie Powell didn't wait around for her terrible job to become less soul-crushing. She embarked on a creative project in her spare time that would allow her to lift herself out of her untenable position by writing a book about it that would also inspire others. The lesson is, instead of waiting around for your life to get better, take the initiative to improve it. 

Enjoy What Life Has To Offer

Julia Child reacted to every bite that she ever took on camera, and presumably off, as though it were the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. Whatever the dish, she savored it for all that it had to offer. Meryl Streep, being the consummate actor that she is, recreated this same joy on screen. 

Of course, life is not always a delicious dish. Everyone encounters some bitterness in life from time to time. However, your attitude has a lot to do with how well you handle these times. If you look to the future with positivity and optimism, and work to make things better for yourself rather than passively waiting for improvement, your attitude can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Don't Be Afraid To Make Mistakes

One of the things that made Julia Child's cooking program so remarkable, especially by today's standards, was that at the time, there was no way to edit out mistakes. While she was very talented, she wasn't infallible, and when she made a mistake when cooking, it was on full display to an audience of millions of viewers. She didn't let it faze her or wonder what other people would think of her. She acknowledged the mistake, corrected it as best she could, and moved on. People loved her all the more for it because it showed that she was still human. If she could make mistakes and still be successful, clearly minor errors weren't the end of the world, which is a lesson that can apply to many aspects of life. 

Follow Your Passion Without Losing Sight of What Is Most Important

In the movie, both Child and Powell discover something that they are passionate about in life: cooking and writing, respectively. Both find creative ways to pursue that passion, and both end up happy and successful as a result. It isn't always easy to pursue your passion; it may require working a job to pay the bills and making spare time to do what you love, but it is ultimately worth the effort. 

However, there are other aspects of life that are at least as important, including relationships with family and friends. Taking time to nurture these relationships helps you gain the support you need to pursue your passion.