"A movie worth savoring."

Based on two true success stories, director Nora Ephron's film Julie & Julia is a delicious dish -- but not because of the food...

Despite divergent circumstances, the movie's dual heroines, Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and Julie Powell (Amy Adams), have much in common -- especially in Queens blogger Powell's worshipful mind. Both have fond husbands, have work/worked as government secretaries, love food, and confront obstacles and odds in pursuit of a calling -- Julia's being cooking and Julie's writing. Julia is undoubtedly unconventional, while Julie may consider herself so, though her edginess isn't evident in the film.

Yet Julia's journey unfolds in much more elegant and exotic environs than Julie's. In idyllic 1950s Paris the newly unemployed and unoccupied, well-off wife of a diplomat enrolls in the Cordon Bleu cooking school when hat making and bridge fail to captivate her. Julie's adventure, on the other hand, departs in 2002 from a dingy Queens apartment above a pizza joint. She spends her days penned in a cubicle, tethered to a headset, enduring the drudgery and torment of answering the anguished and angry phone calls of citizens dealing with the aftermath of 9/11, until one day she vows to commit to her dream of being a writer by composing a blog -- The Julie/Julia Project -- a chronicle of her mission to braise, debone, and bake her way through Child's iconic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 524 recipes in 365 days.

You've probably heard word of Ephron's attention to detail, strolling through Powell's Queens apartment once and then replicating it on-screen, down to the lamp. It's arguably that talent (along with Streep) that enabled her to serve the two women's tales side by side with such richness in regard to sense of time and place, alternating between their worlds, offering deliciously tangible snapshots of their lives well-spiced with significant details. Streep does a spirited impression of the "French Chef" that, if not exact, captures the feisty, mischievous charm of the indomitable poulet pioneer. Stanley Tucci shines despite his distance from the spotlight as the man behind the culinary star. Glimpses of Child's lustier side as well as her passionate marriage, make this mini Julia biopic the ingredient that makes the movie worth savoring.

Ephron's easily inhabitable depiction of Julie's despair-sprinkled daily grind -- though infused with wry wit -- is less satisfying. Though an Amy Adams admirer, watching her in Julie & Julia I wondered whether she can ever switch off the doe-eyed sweetness that makes her so endearing. When Adams as Powell describes herself in word and deed as a narcissistic "bitch," it just doesn't ring true. Plus, where is the butter belly she laments about? Chris Messina proves solid albeit secondary as Julie's "saint" of a husband.

And then there's the food. Beef Bourguignon, chocolate crème pie ... it's decadent, in abundance, and for the brief tastes the camera gives of each recipe, looks scrumptious. Alas, the pleasure is too fleeting and Julie and her husband's nibbles and greedier indulgences too few for an audience's mouth to water the way it might in Chocolat, Waitress, or Eat Drink Man Woman.

But then, food doesn't seem to be what Ephron intended moviegoers to fill up on. Rather, the real feast is the amusing mishaps, admirable accomplishments, and uplifting success of two women easy to relate to and root for.

Grade: B

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