Julia

— If you missed HBO’s 8-episode “Julia,” it’s a wonderful look at the first season of Julia Child’s television show. It’s hard to tackle the role of Julia after Meryl Streep’s incredible performance in “Julia and Julia,” but Sarah Lancashire manages to also embrace Julia’s essence with the help of a great supporting cast that includes David Hyde Pierce and Bebe Neuwirth. It’s a well-done look at a legend and at a pivotal point in history for women, for American culture, and for PBS. It’s even fun to get a glimpse of PBS in the early years and it’s place in the gray area between education and entertainment, when maintaining a distinction between highbrow and riffraff was given more importance. In some ways, it’s a pretty traditional bio-drama without the salaciousness and continual conniving we often see in today’s looks at famous people, but it has humor, warmth, and decency instead. [HBO Max streaming.]

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[2022. 127 min. 8 episodes, each 50-55 min, Created by Daniel Goldfarb. Starring Sarah Lancashire, David Hyde Pierce, Bebe Neuwirth, Brittany Bradford, Fran Kranz, Fiona Glascott, and Rob Levesque.]
https://variety.com/2022/tv/reviews/julia-review-hbo-max-child-1235218037/