TV Review: In Praise of "Julia"
The short-lived HBO Max show focusing on the life and career of Julia Child was a remarkable piece of joy and optimism in an often cynical world.
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Like a lot of other people, I was very disappointed to learn that Julia, the HBO Max series chronicling the life and career of beloved chef Julia Child, wouldn’t be receiving a third season. This was, presumably, yet another of those cost-cutting measures that have become de rigueur over at Warner Discovery under the reign of David Zaslav, who I don’t think has ever met a beloved series or brand that he didn’t feel the overwhelming compulsion to destroy (see also: TCM). Even so, it felt like a real loss for the streamer, particularly since Julia was one of those series which quite simply radiated joy. There was conflict and personal drama, of course, but somehow you always knew that everything was going to be okay, because Julia was going to be there. There’s something uniquely reassuring about such a show, particularly in these bleak and cynical times.
The series begins in 1961, when Julia Child is flush with the publication of her book, Mastering the The Art of French Cooking which, due to an appearance on a literary program on the local Boston PBS affiliate, soon rockets to success. It’s not long before Julia is in-demand and, encouraged by a young producer named Alice Naman (Brittany Bradford), she starts her own show, with all of the complexities and struggles that involves, both professionally and personally.
From the very beginning, it was Sarah Lancashire who was the true gem of this series. It wasn’t just that she managed to capture the effervescent charm of everyone’s favorite TV chef; it’s that she also possessed that ineffable thing that I can only term charisma. She simply radiates joy any time that she is on the screen, whether she’s teaching American audiences how to cook a fine French meal or having a heart-to-heart with her beloved Paulsky (David Hyde Pierce). There is, I think, a blurring of star and role going on here. Much like Child herself, Lancashire knows how to command the camera and to invite the audience into her friendly and cozy world and encourage them to want to stay there.
The series narrativizes this blurring from the jump, because it’s clear as soon as Julia appears on an episode of I’ve Been Reading–a literary show hosted by the stuffy and condescending P. Albert Duhamel (played with typical panache by Jefferson Mays, who never met a preening know-it-all he couldn’t play to the hilt). Even though the interview is awkward due to their widely divergent personalities, it’s still clear to both the diegetic audience and to those of us sitting in our living rooms that we are witnessing the birth of a star. Though Lancashire has been in several other notable films and TV series, I daresay this will become one of her most iconic and lauded performances.
Julia’s/Lancashire’s charm also radiates out of her more intimate moments with her husband, Paul, played by TV legend David Hyde Pierce. Even though they have their differences and disagreements–sometimes quite strenuous–it’s clear from the beginning of the series that they truly love each other and, just as importantly, respect one another. There’s something quite endearing about seeing an older couple represented so honestly and tenderly on TV, and it’s particularly refreshing to see these two characters still demonstrate physical desire for one another.
There’s something more than a little exciting about the fact that Julia’s career really hits its stride at just the moment that she hits menopause. Like so many other great TV series–including most notably The Golden Girls–Julia proposes that you don’t have to be a young person to make an impact on the world. As we see throughout both the first and second seasons, Julia’s firm belief in the goodness of people and the healing power of food, ends up changing not just her life but those of everyone around her.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the second season did seem to struggle a bit in terms of finding a coherent plot, with all of the characters seeming to wander off on their own arcs. There were times when it seemed as if Julia herself were an afterthought in her own show. Despite its narrative ramblings, however, there was never an episode of Julia that I didn’t enjoy, quite simply because I loved spending time with these characters, getting to know them better and seeing them in all of their flawed and glorious humanity. Everyone gets their own moments of moral ambiguity and everyone has their flaws, even Julia. While Julia is a staunch advocate for the downtrodden–in one notable episode she goes out of her way to praise an African American chef at the White House–she notably gets on better with men than women, and she can hardly be called a feminist.
As compelling as Lancashire and Pierce were, they were joined by a very talented supporting cast. Bradford is truly a powerhouse as Alice, who proves to be every bit the fierce pioneer as Julia. Fiona Glascott brings an icy grace to Judith Jones, the editor at Knopf who brings Julia’s book to the world, and Judith Light is brittle and waspish as the redoubtable Blanche Knopf. And of course there are the two giants of stage and screen Bebe Neuwirth and Isabella Rossellini, who play Avis DeVoto and Simone "Simca" Beck, Julia’s best friend and collaborator, respectively. Even Rachel Bloom makes an appearance in part of the second season as Elaine Levitch, though she is criminally underused except as a feminist foil for Julia.
Aside from the simple pleasure of the performances, Julia was also a fascinating examination of the early days of television. There are storylines involving corporate sponsorship–which Julia, for obvious reasons, opposes–and even an investigation by the FBI. Some of these are a bit flat-footed, to be sure, but this is a show whose heart is always in the right place. It shows just how much of a pioneer Julia was and how her work on The French Chef not only opened up new culinary opportunities for Americans but also blazed a trail for other women in television.
I honestly have no idea where they were going to go with a planned third season, but I can see a number of directions in which they might have gone. Even though it ended too soon, Julia was yet another reminder that not all television has to be some bleak rumination on existential angst and the plight of broody male antiheroes (I’ve been watching True Detective, which reminded me of how common this particular figure was in 21st century television). Instead, it can be a reminder of the power of food and good friendship to make the world a better place, even if just for a little while. For this gift and so many others, I will always be grateful to Julia.