I follow David Lebovitz on Facebook. He posted a link to this article. I found it informative, insightful and well written.
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I watched the first episode and didn’t get into it.
The design was this depressing out of date 70s style interior which was boring and depressing to look at.
It lacked the aesthetic good looking shots that the movie Julia and Julia had and I believe the story in Episode One was about Mrs. Child getting started on a tv series of her own - very boring with little or no tension/plot or excitement.
In sum, boring story with boring and depressing interior and stage design that make it depressing and boring to watch - sorry to fans of Mrs. Child if I offended them.
The article posted by @maccrogenoff above was fascinating to me. Very disappointing to know that HBO’s new Julia Child series gets so much wrong. There’s a feast of accurate information that the series could have used.
Since you mentioned being disappointed in the set design of the series @eugenep, I wonder if you had seen Julia Child’s real-life kitchen, which you can visit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Lots of photos and history at the link above if you are curious. Julia’s actual kitchen in her Cambridge, Mass. home was simple and practical.
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I’m a little disappointed with the liberties they took in telling the story, but I guess that is par for the course with tv these days. I may give it a go anyway, as I really adored My Life in France–as much for their life and relationship as the food.
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^ Same here—one of my favorites.
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I’m watching it and I think it is delightfully entertaining. It is entertainment not a documentary, it is 'inspired by" Julia. I’m also a big fan of Sarah Lancashire.
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Glad you are enjoying! The real Julia’s life is the stuff of legend in the Boston area, so it would be hard for someone like me to get into a show like that. So many wonderful true stories over the years, like this recollection from Chef Ming Tsai. Ice cream sandwiches. 
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Sure, I can understand. I’ve always been a fan and watched all her shows, well still do, some of them, but I’m not that familiar with her history. Or if I was, I have forgotten.
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For those enjoying the series inspired by the life of Julia Child, HBO Max has renewed Julia for a second season.
Thanks for posting this. I don’t know anything about Judith Jones, but I grew up in Boston in the 70s and have clear memories of the French Chef (and my daughter goes to Smith so I hear all about her on Julia Child Day, when the dining halls serve her recipes.) I’ve been watching it, and I will finish it, but there are enough little things that seem off to me that I wonder if the whole thing is maybe ill-conceived. I think they are trying to make political statements that Julia did not (I read her memoir and I don’t recall her seeming anti-feminist). But Sarah Lancashire is fantastic.
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What a tempest in a teapot! HBO doesn’t pretend its “Julia” is a documentary. I thoroughly enjoyed it and found the three main characters of Julia, Paul, and Avis, very entertaining and well-acted. Judith Jones is not the star. Who cares about the authenticity of her haircut, or her marital status? The devoted, nitpicking author of the Literary Hub article should be consoled by the fact that Ms. Jones got more air time from HBO than in “Julie & Julia”, where, never onscreen, she was portrayed as condescending and inconsiderate. The author writes her bloomers into an overly-detailed twist. Good luck to her on ginning up interest in her upcoming book on Jones.
