Julie & Julia

CinemaSerf 11/14/2026 12:19:28PM 8.4

Julia Childs (Meryl Streep) is married to middle-ranking American diplomat Paul (Stanley Tucci) and is frankly a bit bored during his posting in Paris not long after the end of the Second World War. She loves French cuisine and so decides that it might be fun (and quite possibly lucrative too) if she were to take lessons and then, hopefully, create a cook book that translated some of the nuances of these delicacies into English for a readership at home. Naturally, the local establishment looks down it's nose at her, but she isn't going to be easily deterred from her mission and so defiantly perseveres! Skip on a few years, cross the Atlantic, and we meet Julie (Amy Adams) who is happily married to Eric (Chris Messina) and lives above a pizza parlour. She is also a bit unfulfilled by her government job, too, and herself a wannabe writer decides that she is going to write a blog each day for a year about recipes she has tried out from Childs's book. Will anyone engage and is there any way she can make any sort of living from her efforts? Now as we juggle their distinctive timelines, we are able to enjoy their triumphs and disasters both in and out of the kitchen as these two women strive to attain their entirely separate but interwined goals. And learn how to bone a duck! For us Brits who recall the slightly overwhelming Fanny Craddock on the television, there is plenty to appreciate from Streep's relatable and slightly over-the-top performance as well as an heavily-laden French accent that could defrost a glacier at thirty paces. Adams hasn't quite so much to do, here, but she gels well with Messina to present us with quite a fun contrast as she does all but burn down their apartment en route through the sometimes turbulent process of emulating her more aloof inspiration. Streep looks like she is enjoying herself here, and together with some fine Parisian photography, a bit of amiable nationalistic stereotyping and some enjoyable dialogue, I found myself interested in just how to get my own cheese soufflé to rise and not end up looking like a sunken grave from a Roger Corman film.