Julie & Julia (Glutton Dressed As Glam)

Julie & Julia is a chick flick.
You must remind yourself of this, before you buy that ticket (or indeed, the pirated DVD), and then you may properly enjoy it: Because despite Meryl Streep playing the iconic Julia Child, Nora Ephron’s latest cinematic offering never rises above being souffle fluffy. As you all know, Ms Ephron is a celebrated screenwriter/director, starting with the hit When Harry Met Sally and as a director with Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You've Got Mail (1998), you can expect a certain standard.
Am I the only one who thinks that the wonderful Meryl Streep has been badly directed here? It's too much, the voice, the eye-rolling, the gestures and walk: Streep's like a man in domestic goddess drag, and following her trannie turn in The Devil Wears Prada, seems to be gaily parodying herself at the end of her career. This is not acting. This is female impersonation. In comparison, it is Stanley Tucci, as Julia's husband Paul, who is sublime and who unexpectedly runs away with the film. Julia Child, who died at the age of 91 in 2004, is surely rolling in her grave somewhere.
Streep's arch performance is leavened by the Julie Powell (played "cutesy" by Amy Adams) parts. Powell is conventional chick-flick/lit material, an aspiring writer stuck in a thankless job who with an adorable and very patient boyfriend: Could you get anymore formulaic than this? Powell finds salvation by cooking all 524 recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the seminal American epic Child authored, and blogging about it for a year.
If only life were that simple (or is it simplistic?).
Of course Powell is a real-life Internet phenom — her blog did become the delectable book that became this film. This gives us some optimism. But Ms Ephron attempts to draw parallels between the lives of these two women, unconvincingly, I thought. French food just isn't pizza, and Paris isn't Queens, is it? It's not the same sort of struggle at all, what conceit!
Julie & Julia is entertaining nonetheless (can you want anything more from a chickflick?), and the styling is above average (which is more than I can say for most chickflicks), and spot-on for spring 2010. Plus, Joan Juliet-Buck, ex Vogue Paris editor plays a wicked cameo in it so that's something to watch out for, for you fashion people!