Julie & Julia

Amy Adams and Meryl Streep star as the two title characters in this twin biographical piece, which tries to juxtapose the story of Julia Child's early rise along with the modern day tale of super-fan Julie Powell. Meryl Streep gives her usual bravura performance, as we learn about Julia's early days in France as a diplomat's wife, her adventures as a student at the Le Cordon Bleu: leading up of course to the publication of her highly influential tome, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Meanwhile, Julie Powell takes on the daunting task of preparing all 524 recipes in Ms. Child's book within one year while posting a Blog detailing her adventures in doing so. This was a good film that could have been great, if only the powers that be had decided that Julia's story was enough to carry the whole film. Of course demographics play a huge role in getting films made so obviously the "studio suits" felt that Julia without Julie was as marketable as Garfunkel without Simon. Not that Ms. Adams didn't do a fine job in the role; it's just that frankly, her story of a bored government employee who cooks and blogs didn't have quite the personality of Ms. Child's. Although I enjoyed the film, I was always waiting for the story to shift back to Julia whenever the focus was on Julie.

Rating - 3 Stars