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Meryl Streep dons the voice and apron of the legendary cook Julia Child in the sort-of-fact-based comedy “Julie & Julia.” |
If you’ve seen Meryl Streep’s joyously ebullient take on Julia Child in trailers for “Julie & Julia,” then you already know:
Streep is a hoot-and-a-half as the bigger-than-life American personality who conquered the culinary world with her zest for food and her groundbreaking 1961 recipe book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”
With her slightly befuddled delivery and her sing-songy voice merrily tripping up and down the scale, Julia Child seemed more like a caricature of a TV chef than a real chef cooking up something tasty before the camera.
Streep wisely avoids creating a carbon-copy of Child, but opts for a fluid, organic performance that enjoins the woman’s spirit more than her speech and mannerisms, and those are already enjoined to the hilt.
Child is only half of the story in Nora Ephron’s movie, culled from Julie Powell’s book-inspiring blog “The Julie/Julia Project” and from Child’s posthumously completed 2006 autobiography “My Life in France.”
The other half, obviously, belongs to Julie, a New Yorker who decides to write her own blog, based on boiling, basting, grilling and processing her way through every one of Child’s French recipes in one year: 524 recipes in 365 days. (Read more…)