It’s like a female version of The Godfather Part 2. 

Two of the better actresses working today appear in the same movie, but their scenes are set decades apart, so we never see them together.  Instead, we watch how two lives in separate times can be so similar and how one can cast a heavy shadow over another.

Of course, we had to wait a few more decades to see Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro onscreen together, and we’ve already had the pleasure of seeing Meryl Streep and Amy Adams work together in last year’s Doubt.  And Julie & Julia doesn’t have the body count of a Coppola mob movie (except for a couple of poor lobsters). Julie & Julia makes you think but doesn’t bring you down.  It’s a downright adorable story of two women seizing the day and discovering their talents.

One of the women is an icon.

Streep plays culinary legend Julia Child in the early days of her career.  She’s by her husband’s side as his government job takes them across Europe, but=2 0she’s searching for something of her own. She loves life and its simple pleasures – especially food.  (If you ever saw the late Child cook, you know how she can expound on simple ingredients.  She really liked butter as the movie makes clear).  She takes a cooking class, meets the women who will co-author her book, and the rest is history.

Years later, that history inspires Julie Powell in another true story.  Powell became a star of the blogosphere in 2002 when she set on a mission:  within the course of a year, prepare every recipe in Child’s cookbook. Julie discovers Julia at a critical time in her life.  She’s about to turn thirty, and she isn’t where she thought she’d be. She loved to write, but somehow ends up working for an insurance company taking claims for 9/11 victims.  She dreads seeing her friends who think they have it rough because they can’t find a good assistant. 

Director/writer Nora Ephron (who’s given us some of the very best chick flicks) takes each of their stories and serves them to us in just the right doses.  She goes back and forth to show how each of their quests changes their lives and their relationships.  It’s fascinating to see how these journeys of self-discovery can affec t those around them:  not just in the home but in their social circles.  Julie especially goes through something that does happen as you age:  you realize maybe you don’t really like your friends anymore.

But their significant relationships are with their significant others.  Paul Child (Stanley Tucci) and Eric Powell (Chris Messina) are important to each woman, and each has an influence on how and what they write. Tucci in particular is as fantastic as always.  He was Meryl Streep’s de facto husband in The Devil Wears Prada and was a scene stealer.  He may be even better here as Julia’s adoring husband. He is so obviously deeply in love with her and they are wonderful together.  He believes in her and was clearly her real life inspiration (“You eat so well,” he tells her as he roots her on).

Paul is as inspired by Julia’s love of life as the rest of the world eventually was.  Streep plays it perfectly.  She is so full of joy it’s infectious.  Julia’s trademark voice and body type could easily be parodied, but Streep makes her real.  Julie isn’t as juicy a part, but Adams makes her very relatable and someone you can’t help but root for.

There is one opportunity that Julie & Julia misses:  beyond the times and technology, there is no real contrasting of their work. The movie could have explored a bit more the nature of what they’re doing.  At one point, it does touch on it, but it doesn’t dig deep. What makes up creativity?  Is it truly innovative to just take someone else’s ideas and write about them?  Is that what constitutes creative writing anymore?  You could think on that and think both ways.  Heck, if you wanted to get all philosophical, you could argue Julia wasn’t all that innovative.  She didn’t invent butter after all.  She took someone else’s idea and expanded on it.  And she did it brilliantly.

Which is what Nora Ephron did with Julie & Julia – she took two interesting stories, and she expanded on them expertly.