Julie & Julia. 123 minutes. Rated PG. Written and directed by Nora Ephron. Based on the books by Julie Powell, Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme
Before Nigella Lawson and Gordon Ramsay, there was Julia Child: an American chef, author and television personality who not only pioneered the concept of 'the celebrity chef', but who, with her seminal culinary work Mastering the Art of French Cooking, introduced the wonders of French cuisine and cooking techniques to the English-speaking world.
It is 1948, and diplomat Paul Child (The Lovely Bones' Stanley Tucci), is assigned to Paris by the US Foreign Service. His wife, Julia Child (a formidable Meryl Streep), finds herself in Paris with nothing to occupy either her time or her marvellously adventurous curiosity. Finding herself constantly frustrated by the lack of English language recipe translations of her beloved French cuisine, Julia sets out to study and explore the culinary landscape.
It is also 2002, and Julie Powell (Amy Adams) is a young writer, trapped in a clinically bland call centre answering telephone calls from victims of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. To provide some respite from her harrowing day job, Powell decides to set herself a monumental challenge: to cook every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 365 days.
Ms Ephron's (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle) long and reverential split-narrative script makes for really hard going – especially in the faintly-drawn contemporary sequences where Ms Adams (and Chris Messina as her husband 'Eric') really have their work cut out for them eliciting any continuing genuine interest in their comparatively boring relationship and Ms Powell's, essentially, entirely pointless undertaking.
Fortunately, courtesy of Ben Barraud's gorgeous art direction, Mark Ricker's flawless production design and Stephen Goldblatt's (Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief) outstanding cinematography, the film looks absolutely beautiful. While, in real life, Julia Child summarily dismissed Ms Powell's endeavour, it would have been fascinating to hear what she had to say about this imagining of her life. I imagine she would have 'loved Meryl and Stanley' but wished for 'a lot less of young Miss Powell'. Touché … and bon appetit!
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