Film File - Julie & Julia

Before Myrtle, Rachel and Nigella, there was Julia - the first woman to bring celebrity into the kitchen. But in 1948, Julia Child (Meryl Streep) was just an American woman living in France, a stranger in a strange world who, left alone to her devices, yearned for a new challenge. The result of this expat yearning was an easy to understand cookbook which took the world by storm. The film takes the approach of interweaving Child's celebrated memoir, 'My Life In France', about the cook's own years in post-World War II Paris as the wife of American foreign-service employee Paul Child, when she was able to turn her ardour for French cooking into a dedicated mission to spread its pleasures to American households. After becoming the first American woman to study at the famous Cordon Bleu cooking school, she popularised French cuisine in America by co-writing the English-language cookbook 'Mastering The Art Of French Cooking'. The book's popularity led to a cooking show career that made her a household name in the United States. Like nobody before, Child steered families away from the canned, the frozen and the processed and into food that was fresh and flavourful - a metaphor for enjoying life to the full. "When you talk about passion, Julia Child didn't just have it for her husband or cooking, she had a passion for living," says Streep. "Real, true joie de vivre. She loved being alive, and that's inspirational in and of itself." A half-century later, in 2002, New Yorker Julie Powell (Amy Adams) was nearing 30, dissatisfied as a writer, and facing an emotionally depleting day job working for an organisation devoted to rebuilding the World Trade Centre site after 9/11 and helping displaced residents resettle. Spurred to change her life, she decided to cook her way through Child's masterpiece - 524 recipes in 365 days - and chronicle her efforts in a blog. With the encouragement of her husband, Eric, who was happy to devour the fruits of her labours, Julie began detailing the ups and downs of her time-consuming project. Today, blogging is part of the fabric of our lives, but back in 2002, Powell was a pioneer. Her writings became so popular that, like Child, she got her own culinary adventure published - 'Julie & Julia: My Year Of Cooking Dangerously' - which hit the bookshelves in 2005. The project attracted the interest of writer/director Nora Ephron, with her interest in food as it relates to life. Ephron believed both stories were going to be about marriage and food, two things that go together in most people's lives. With Streep's vital performance in last year's 'Mamma Mia!' still ringing pleasantly in the ears, this follow-up is another comedic turn that'll surely prompt another rush to the cinemas. With her keen ear for Child's high-pitched voice, an abundance of food the equal of any feast ever served up in film before, and a lovingly recreated Paris of the '40s and '50s, 'Julie & Julia' is a hands-down winner in this autumn of our discontent. Directed and written with Ephron's trademark witty style, the film jumps between Child's life in Paris 60-odd years ago and the modern-day Julie in New York trying to make her name. While the Paris segments, bolstered by Streep's joie de vivre, are a foodie poem to Gallic charm and gastronomy, the sequences of Julie as the whining 30-something celebrity wannabe are definitely the lower end of the see-saw. Using Child's recipes as a springboard to eventual success, we may applaud her ambition, but wait anxiously until the next Paris section unfolds. 'Julie & Julia' is a treat for those who enjoy comedy, food and the sheer enjoyment of life. Stanley Tucci and Chris Messina are solid as the two husbands, but the the centrepiece of the feast is again the multiple Oscar-winner Streep, who is definitely on an autumn career roll.