Bon Appétit! How ‘Julie & Julia’ Fits Into The Nora Ephron Canon, 10 Years Later

It’s easy to equate Nora Ephron with romance; the legendary mind behind When Harry Met Sally…, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail is often discussed in relation to this perfect trilogy of rom-coms, and deservedly so. But often overlooked is the pain that lives between these works, in pieces like Heartburn. The love stories that live in her three most famous films feel aspirational, as if she’s reaching for a fantasy she can’t quite put her finger on yet, while Heartburn is undoubtedly bitter and angry; all are reflective of her own relationships in one way or another, and her final film Julie & Julia is no exception. While it is based on two true stories and isn’t blatantly autobiographical whatsoever, it’s hard to shake the feeling that this film could only have been made by someone who knows what a loving, fulfilling marriage feels like. According to the Ephrons, after all, “everything is copy“, so it makes perfect sense that Ephron – who was married to her third husband, Nick Pileggi, from 1987 until her death in 2012 – make a film about two rich, complex marriages, the same that she had finally come to experience for herself.

When we talk about Julie & Julia, now 10 years old, we usually don’t talk about the romance. We talk about the food. And it’s not hard to see why! I’d be remiss to label it anything but food porn; I admittedly made myself an indulgent plate of bruschetta while rewatching the film recently because I knew Julie Powell (Amy Adams) would whip up her own within the first half hour. The cuisine is certainly a worthy focus, but upon second, third, and even fourth viewings, the two marriages at the heart of the film emerge as the true stars – the main course, if you will. Whether we’re on a trip back to Paris in the 1950s with Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and her doting husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) or in 2002 Queens with Julie and Eric (Chris Messina), we get a glimpse of marriages that are stable and supportive and vibrant – and overwhelmingly normal. They seem to reflect where Ephron was at that point in her own life, finally content in love and no longer vengeful or bitter or dreaming of something unattainable. In Ephron’s last movie, a good marriage is no longer a fantasy. There’s no longer a yearning for a love that might exist somewhere out there. There’s laughter and passion and work. The work it takes to keep a marriage alive through things like infertility or burnt bœuf bourguignon.

As delightful as the marriages in Julie & Julia are, they certainly aren’t perfect. The couples hit rough patches, and in our Queens story, Eric even briefly leaves Julie – but they reconcile and work through things. They concede to their wrongdoings and put effort towards being better. These are the marks of healthy relationships, a union long past the honeymoon phase and existing in a world where issues and conflict and compromise are inevitable. But that’s the beauty of it. If Julie & Julia was simply two hours of two perfect couples, it’d be unbearable to sit through. Instead, we’re gifted with a glimpse into real (albeit somewhat romanticized) relationships, even when they’re occasionally over-salted or undercooked. This is a movie so clearly made with love that it’s impossible not to feel a sense of peace and fulfillment by the time it’s over. Ephron’s personal contentment certainly seems to play a large role in Julie & Julia, but there’s also something to be said about the fact that the actors who play the core four (Streep, Tucci, Adams, and Messina) have all acted in multiple projects together. There’s no denying this connection when you see the respective couples on screen together. Julie & Julia is the film equivalent of a warm blanket and your favorite home-cooked meal, a cinematic relaxant of culinary proportions.

“You are the butter to my bread, you are the breath to my life,” Paul tells Julia, melting her heart (and ours). This warm, moving sentiment echoes throughout the entirety of Julie & Julia, keeping us cozy even when our protagonists are in painful situations. We never really have to wonder if our couples are going to have their happy endings, because they’ve already found each other. It’s not marked by the traditional climax and resulting happily-ever-after of a romantic comedy, but rather the ebb and flow that defines long-term relationships. And that’s what makes it so significant, even when compared to the rest of Ephron’s body of work. How many films like this introduce us to already-happy couples?

While it’s true that Julie & Julia doesn’t quite live up to the iconic status of Ephron’s three other rom-coms, the love story at its heart remains just as valid as every other story Ephron told over the course of her career. It acts as an enduring symbol of Ephron’s evolution both as a storyteller and as a human, a beautiful showcase for what contentment can look like, the contentment that she seemed to be full of before her life was tragically cut short. On Julie & Julia‘s 10-year anniversary, there’s not much else to say but bon appétit! If more films were cooked up with as much love as this one seems to be, all the doom and gloom in the world would be a lot easier to digest.

Jade Budowski is a freelance writer with a knack for ruining punchlines and harboring dad-aged celebrity crushes. She is also a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski.

Where to stream Julie & Julia