Julie and Julia

This was the best comedy I have seen in a long time, most uplifting, fun film I have seen in a long time. No swearing, no bombs, no guns, no vomit, not much sex - just lots and lots of food. Copious amounts of food. So much food in fact you leave the cinema feeling stuffed and starving at the same time.

This film by director Nora 'Sleepless in Seattle' Ephron, is, unusually, based on not one but two true stories which are fantastically interwoven but take place nearly half a century apart. One in the 1950s the other in 2001/2002

The modern day story centres on Julie Powell a frustrated New York hipster and former most-likely-to-succeed university journalist who has found herself somehow working in a cubicle processing insurance forms for victims of 09/11 while her friends manage their high octane careers. Emotionally distraught after one particularly brutal lunch with her friends (think Sex and the City by Tarantino). She decides she needs a project and so elects to cook her way through the 500+ recipes of Mastering the Art of French Cuisine by Julia Child in one year and keep a blog about it.

The second story follows the just mentioned Julia Child, a gusty, patrician, no-fear women and she moves to France with her diplomat husband after the second world war and lacking for something to do decides to go to a Cordon Bleu cookery school which she finds her true calling. In time she became the most famous American cook of her day a kind of Nigella, Jamie and Fannie Craddock all rolled into one.

The film jumps back and forth between the two women as they go through various trials and tribulations on the path for achieving their goals; for Child to finish her book, for Powell to meet her cooking deadline. It's funny for sure but there's also a lot of love and sentimentality without being soppy.

Meryl Streep is hilarious as Julia Child and deserves at the very least an Oscar nomination. Amy Adams as Julie is a little whiny at times but still likeable. It's quite a long movie but you don't really feel it as it zips along jumping back and forth between to two women.

Would heartily recommend.