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5:09 p.m. Wednesday, August 5, 2009

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Streep fills big shoes in 'Julie & Julia'

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By Roger Moore

McClatchy / Tribune

“Julie & Julia” is a gloriously frothy confection, a late summer delight built on Meryl Streep’s hilarious impersonation of “The French Chef,” Julia Child.

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Meryl Streep portrays the late Julia Child with the same silliness and enthusiasm the “French Chef” was known for in and out of the kitchen

Jonathan Wenk, Columbia Pictures Meryl Streep portrays the late Julia Child with the same silliness and enthusiasm the “French Chef” was known for in and out of the kitchen

Enlarge photo

“Julie & Julia” engages everytime it focuses on Amy Adams, who plays Julie Powell, the woman who cooked her way through “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and blogged about her experience.

Jonathan Wenk, Columbia Pictures “Julie & Julia” engages everytime it focuses on Amy Adams, who plays Julie Powell, the woman who cooked her way through “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and blogged about her experience.

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The comedy about a would-be writer’s attempt to cook her way through Child’s culture-changing cookbook sees Nora Ephron return to her “Sleepless in Seattle” form. She combined Julie Powell’s book on her quest to “be like Julia” and Child’s memoir of her years in France to create a movie that engages every time it focuses on Julie (Amy Adams, sweet as ever) in her Queens, N.Y. kitchen, and tickles every moment it flashes back to Julia’s struggles to learn French, learn French cuisine and write the cookbook that taught America “Bon appetit!”

Julie was living in quiet desperation, with a thankless job, but she liked to cook. Her husband (Chris Messina) suggests a blog. And Julie comes up with a task, the chance “to finally finish something.” She will follow the 524 recipes in Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” cook them all within a year, and blog about it.

As Julie goes through this culinary metamorphosis we skip back to the late 1940s, when newlywed Julia Child (Stanley Tucci is spot-on perfect as her droll husband, Paul) moved to Paris and found her life’s calling. The tall, loud woman with the silly, fluty voice, boundless enthusiasm and adorably self-deprecating wit comes back to life in Streep’s hands.

Through her performance we realize, as Julie did, the truth in her husband’s don’t-be-intimidated-by-the-great-cook pep talk.

“Julia Child wasn’t always Julia Child.”

Another coup — landing the towering comedienne Jane Lynch (“Role Models”) as Julia’s sister. She holds her own with Streep and then some.

“Julie & Julia” does tend to bog down in the last act, but as Child put it whenever a souffle fell or crepe didn’t flip, “Never apologize!”

Movie review

“Julie & Julia”

Grade: B

Starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina and Jane Lynch. Directed by Nora Ephron.

Rated PG-13 (for brief strong language and some sensuality). At metro theaters. 2 hours.

Bottom line: Frothy and delightful.