Julie & Julia

Based on the book of the same name this follows Julie's (Amy Adams) qwest to recharge her life by cooking every recipe in Julia Child's (Meryl Streep) famous French cookbook over the course of a year. That's roughly 524 recipes in 365 days including the much dreaded boning of a full duck. By day Julie works in a government agency fielding calls from 9/11 victims and by night she works her way through the cookbook while blogging about it (on Salon.com no less to ensure the full flashback experience is complete). She's a bit dissatisfied with her life, turning 30 and not yet the published author she'd hoped to be.

I've never read the book (which I assume is based on the blog) though it's been sitting on my shelf for quite a few years. I'm not sure how the book is setup, but the movie splits its time between Julie working on the blog and Julia during her time in Paris (and beyond) as she began work on the famous cookbook. Both Adams and Streep do a fine job with their segments (as they did the last time they appeared together as nuns) though I probably enjoyed the Julia years a bit more. Streep brings the character alive nicely showing the zest for life and infectious laugh she was famous for. It also covers her love life and other aspects of those years I'd known nothing about before. Julie's marriage suffers some ups and downs as the cooking/blog begin to consume all of her time.

Admittedly this is a bit of a stereotypical chick flick and probably doesn't break any new cinematic ground. But as entertainment it delivers and I thoroughly enjoyed the film. So I do recommend it. But I suggest you eat something first - probably not something you want to see hungry.