DVD Review: Julie & Julia

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!

Review: The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones. 135 minutes. Rated M. Directed by Peter Jackson; Written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson; Released by Paramount Pictures; Cast includes Saoirse Ronan, Stanley Tucci, Mark Wahlberg and Susan Sarandon.

At a glance: A compelling ode to life after death.

One night during her first semester at college, Alice Sebold (the author of the best-selling novel The Lovely Bones) was brutally raped in a tunnel leading to a local ampitheatre. In the same tunnel, another young woman had been murdered and dismembered by the same man.

It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that The Lovely Bones is considered a tribute to the young girl who did not survive; now 'fictionalised' as 14-year-old Susie Salmon (a rivetting Ms Ronan), who is raped, murdered and dismembered on her way home from school. Susie narrates the story from the afterlife as she observes her dysfunctional family attempting to come to terms with her disappearance, while her killer (infuriatingly) continually evades arrest.

In the years since his absorbing Heavenly Creatures (1994), in which a young Kate Winslet made her feature film debut, Mr Jackson has brought us the epic Lord of The Rings trilogy (2001-2003) and King Kong (2005). The question was whether he and his regular collaborators (Ms Walsh, to whom he is also married, Ms Boyens and Australian Cinematographer Andrew Lesnie) could return to harvest the rich soil of intimate family drama that didn't rely on computer-generated, over-sized razzle dazzle. The answer is a most definitive 'yes'.

Confronting, powerful, beautiful and moving, The Lovely Bones is an extraordinarily potent snapshot of how the disappearance of a young girl can tear a family apart. In a magnificent sequence of time and space shifting, Susie leaves our physical plane and finds herself in the "in-between" – a place from where she and those close to her, can resolve the horrors of an unexpected death, before she continues on her journey to heaven.

The superb cast are equal the demands of the challenging, fluid script, with Ms Sarandon (Grandma Lynn), in particular, relishing her heart-breakingly funny sequence when everything she does to try and return peace and order to the fractured household goes terribly wrong. Lovers of great drama will delight in the luxury of riches on show here; the unquestionable highpoint being an unbearably tense, almost wordless confrontation between Susie's father, Jack (an impressively vulnerable Mr Wahlberg) and their neighbour George Harvey (an eery Mr Tucci), as he begins to suspect that Harvey is responsible for the disappearance of his beloved Susie.

The hugely rewarding ending is entirely cathartic: a visually stunning, poetic ode to the absent victims of torture, abuse and murder; who, while they may have been taken from us in unbearable circumstances, will never been forgotten.

This review was commissioned by The Geraldton Guardian and published in the print edition.