I started
Julia on HBO Max and it’s pleasant enough, but it’s missing something. It has Julia Child, the food, the nice costumes, the great production values…and yet the writing is only ok and doesn’t really quite reach great or even very good. Somethings are played too…cartoonish for me as the characters outside the main ones come off as one-dimensional.
This is less biographical and more turning Julia Child’s life into a workplace drama and also an explanation of how PBS (most notably WGBH in Boston) evolved to what it became in the 20th century to have the impact it did. Because of that however, I think some of things they’re doing to make it artificially more dramatic to make it a work place drama, like having her producer Russell Morash seem too snobby and angry about having to do “cooking show”, is off and seems kind of disrespectful. For example, I searched and searched and couldn’t find anything to show the real Morash thought he was above doing a cooking show or didn’t value what Julia was doing. From the research I gathered, the real life person was a huge part of the show’s success and went on to do more shows with Julia throughout the rest of her life and did his own lifestyle PBS shows. Further, his wife wasn’t just a nobody who cooked the way “Americans” cooked on the show with the tuna casseroles and frozen dinners as she was portrayed on the show, but was a James Beard-winning chef herself who guest starred on Julia’s show. So the real Morash, despite his education and background, wouldn’t seem to be one to thumb his nose at Julia Child’s type of show. It seems like they rewrote him that way to make him the mean white straight man from the 1960s who is Boston educated snobby and devalues women because that’s easy-to-digest these days and people eat those dynamics up even if real life is much more nuanced and complicated than that.
Also, I get erasing a real life female producer and champion of the show, Ruth Lockwood, because just her being a woman producer fighting for position and respect isn’t enough these days, so they replaced her with a black female character. I understand that from a dramaturgical point-of-view in the 2020s that doing so would add new dimensions to the workplace drama they’re creating with this series, but it isn’t done elegantly or sophisticatedly. It seems sort of tacked on and totally inorganic to the point where the character they created is a muddled confused creation by the writers.
And Sarah Lancashire’s Julia Child accent is terrible. Sure she didn’t want to do an impersonation, I get that. But between her and Kidman (in
Being the Ricardos) not even trying to be close to the real like famous counterparts they’re portraying, I’m wondering if this is a new and unsuccessful acting style that’s being pushed on us. I hope it never gets normalized. Also, for all the times I heard British folks complain about American actors not knowing all the different types of British accents and being bad at them anyway, I hope they know the converse is true too. If we nitpicked the same way, I’ve heard so many put-upon unnatural and/or unconvincing American accents by non-Americans and Lancashire in this show is one of them. I know Julia Child has a particular way of speaking but Lancashire isn’t really doing her voice and she’s trying to do an American one but a weird almost-Irish one comes out throughout her speaking. Someone who does do a pretty good but clearly trained American accent is Fiona Glascott, who plays Knopf editor and working partner/friend Judith Jones.
But it’s not just Lancashire’s accent that is missing that makes me think gives this show a void. Lancashire’s Julia is missing that charm, warmth, and star power that made Julia so compelling to watch. It makes me appreciate Meryl Streep’s effort much more.
David Hyde Pierce and Bebe Neuwirth are excellent as Paul Child’s and Avis Devoto.
As far as guest stars, James Cromwell is a stand-out as Julia’s father and his scenes with Lancashire give Lancashire her best scenes. Isabella Rossellini has only appeared in two short scenes in this 7-episode out of 8 stretch so far but she’s a scene stealer as a grumpier Simone Beck. Christian Clemenson was delightful and eye-opening as
but I have been reorganising my kitchen cabinets which means I put random shows on Netflix that don't require thinking.
that “Hajimete no Otsukai”has become a hit outside Japan thanks to Netflix. 
