Great performances in undercooked 'Julie & Julia'

Director: Nora Ephron

Cast: Meryl Street, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci

Cert: 12

With every other programme on TV seemingly about cooking in one form or another this film, a true story, joins the list … though it’s as thin as a pancake.

You want the film to work on an epic scale but the problem is that it’s really two films joined uneasily together.

Streep is, as usual, magnificent as Julia Childs, America’s foremost cook, who learned her trade in the 1940s when she went to Paris with her US Embassy husband. Her story of how she came to write her book of 500-plus recipes is interesting.

Fast forward – for this is a story set in two periods – to the present where Julie (Adams) is disenchanted with where her life is going and sets out to cook up all of Childs’ recipes.

And, alas, the two halves of the cake don’t quite stick together, even though both actresses are in tip-top form.

It’s often funny, it’s often watchable … but there is something missing from the mix.

Star Rating: 3/5