Edelstein on the Bedazzling Meryl Streep

(CBS)  The new movie "Julie & Julia" is keeping the memory of TV's beloved French Chef alive . . . thanks to one very remarkable actress. David Edelstein has a review:

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Method actors are taught to plumb their psyches and dredge up past emotions and pull their characters out of themselves, and often they seem to suffer for real before our eyes.

But not every actor works from the inside out.

Meryl Streep starts with a voice, a way of moving externals. In the '80s, it became a joke: What accent now?

Not that she wasn't enchanting. The campiness of her Polish immigrant early in "Sophie's Choice" was an attempt by the character to keep despair at bay.

Streep brought the same playfulness to the Danish writer and hapless farmer in "Out Of Africa."

Of course, her artifice could be way over-the-top: Take her bag lady in "Ironweed" . . . Please!

About her Edith Bunker accent in "Doubt" I had my doubts, but not about her acting as a whole.

Now, in the comedy "Julie & Julia," she plays the middle-aged Julia Child, and what starts as a great piece of mimicry becomes a triumph of sympathetic imagination.

It's a musical performance. Streep uses Child's burbling falsetto with its trills and diphthongs to get right into Child's pleasure centers. And pleasure was everything.

Streep isn't tall - five-foot-six - but she projects height. She understands the six-foot-two Julia learned not to be ashamed of her size but to go with it, even if she seemed a bit unbalanced.

"Julie & Julia" isn't a great movie. Writer-director Nora Ephron cuts back and forth between Paris in the '50s and Queens, New York, in 2002, where blogger Julie Powell spent a year laboring to make all 500+ recipes in Child's classic "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."

Ephron wants to show how both women achieved emotional autonomy in the kitchen, and Amy Adams is lovely. But the Julie/Julia relationship is strained, and the Julie scenes only skim the surface.

You have to see the movie, though, to watch Streep make the leap from surface to soul, to see acting that's truly transcendental.

Stanley Tucci plays Julia's devoted husband, Paul, and I imagine he was dazzled by Streep and used that bedazzlement to show Paul's bedazzlement with Julia - and we're bedazzled by one of the most tender rapports in all movies. For all the artifice, the emotions are marvelously real.


For more info:

• "Julie & Julia" (Official Movie Site)

[legacyabq]

WOW. The peanut gallery is VERY ANGRY Mr. Edelstein..

I LOVE his movie reviews, theire intelligence and insight..

BUT, this was a mistake... oops..

Lay off the wine... Did you really think you could denigrate Meryl STREEP and not get flamed like a cub scout's marshmallow?!?!?

[gailkaye]

I joined this website simply to add my two cents about the magnificent Meryl Streep. I couldn't agree with nmrosen more; she is absolutely the greatest actress I have ever seen in my life. I had the very great privilege of seeing her in 1974 - 1975 when she was still a student at Yale Drama School and I will never forget how I felt the first time I saw her emerge on stage. As great as she is in the movies, she is that much greater live. She radiates talent from every pore in her body. I remember running home and telling my parents to remember her name, she was going to be a big star. And sure enough, within a couple of years, she was. So I have always felt a special connection to her. I never cease to be amazed by her extraordinary talent. No hyperbole is too much; no superlatives are too high for me when it comes to Meryl Streep. I'm laying my bets now that she will win the Academy Award for Best Actress for "Julie & Julia." The scene with Stanley Tucci when she finds out that her younger sister is pregnant had me in tears, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. She is in the very special pantheon of acting gods, including Laurence Olivier and Marlon Brando. If you ever have the opportunity to see her on the stage, RUN don't walk to the box office! An artist of her stature comes along once in a hundred years or so.

[dianeheigel]

I agree with all the other comments on Mr. Edelstein's review(?). I resented most of all how snide and condescending he was of Ms. Streep's amazing talent and remarkable body of work.

[SallyEliz]

It took me two days to get to a computer so I could post this, but I should have realized others would have already taken Mr. Edelstein to task for his egregious errors in this review. Of course Sophie was a Polish Catholic; I don't understand how he could not know that. And I don't understand how he could not have known that "Doubt" took place in the Bronx, and that Sister Aloysius had a Bronx accent, not a Brooklyn (transported to Queens, that is) accent. And if he only meant to compare the style, not the origin, he's off base too, since Sister Aloysius' accent was very subtle, nothing at all like Edith Bunker's. Such rash generalizations don't reflect well on you, Mr. Edelstein.

[sundayam]

Mr Edelstein called himself a professional movie reviewer? PLEASE! Did he have too much drink when he did his review? This is not the first time he had simple facts wrong, Sophie's Choice is about a polish catholic!! and this is not the first time he "made fun" of Ms Streep's acting. If he had 10% of her talent, he would have been Frank Rich...but he's not! Sorry, Mr Edelstein, you owe the viewers of sunday morning an apology.

[FunDaBronx]

Mr. Edelstein must be from Boston. Or LA. You don't need to be Henry Higgins to distinguish between a Bronx accent and a Brooklyn accent. Edith and Archie brought their Brooklyn accents to Queens. Meryl Streep had a clear Bronx accent in Doubt. Would you confuse Eydie Gorme and and Barbara Streisand? Laura Nyro and Carole King? Tony Curtis and Buddy Hackett?

[marybugs]

I'm also shocked at Mr. Edelstein. Come on, guy, you're the movie critic and you don't know Sophie wasn't Jewish? It's pretty pivotal to the story. And if you think her accent was Edith Bunker (who was from Queens) in Doubt, you've clearly never been to Boston.

[nmrosen]

I did NOT think Mama Mia was the worst movie at all. It was what it was a light, fun musical and Meryl Streep again does it all. If one measures it by Sophie's Choice or Kramer v. Kramer or Doubt well one really cannot. It's NOT that kind of film. It was light, the songs memorable and Meryl constantly shows us the range and depth of her art. Sorry, I cannot criticize, I think, ANYTHING that Streep does. She is in a class occupied by a very few greats like Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Greta Garbos, Dietrichs and the like. My yardstick of greatness is versitility and the ability to fit take on difficult and diverse roles. Streep has met MY measure of greatness time and time and time again. She is brilliant in everything she does.

[andylance1]

Meryl Streep has much to make up for. Her last movie, Mama Mia, was the worst movie I have ever seen in my whole life. Dreadful, sickening and nauseating can't begin to describe it.

Julia Child was a class act and one of a kind. She was even a spy during WWII. Her sense of humor and dry wit was a welcome contrast to the atrocious pablum that was served daily on PBS.

[marbru-2009]

True, Mamma Mia wasn't the best movie I've ever seen, but Meryl makes any movie more enjoyable to watch - and getting to sing along with the ABBA songs just made it a fun movie to see. Pierce Brosnan, however, definitely lacks in the singing department.

[legacyabq]

Yeah, and uh, she wasnt a spy in WWII andy.

[nmrosen]

Mr. Edelstein...TAKE A HIKE!