The problem with Julie & Julia becomes clear about two-thirds of the way through, when Julie Powell (Amy Adams) and hubby Eric (Chris Messina) are seen howling at Dan Aykroyd’s famous Julia Child imitation on SNL.

As you’re chuckling along with them, you realize that, as the gifted cooking instructor Child, Meryl Streep is herself doing an impression, and that does two things. You laugh, much like you laugh at Aykroyd, every time Streep is onscreen, but that in turn vastly reduces the emotional stakes. You just can’t get that invested in the character. 

The film is made up of two true parallel stories. In 2002, Julie Powell, on whose book the movie is based, is trying to cook her way through Julia Child’s groundbreaking cookbook, Mastering The Art Of French Cooking. In postwar France, Child, living in Paris with husband Paul (Stanley Tucci), is bored and looking for a life mission. She finds it at the Cordon Bleu school and, later, in her attempts to write a cookbook on French cuisine. 

It doesn’t help that we have no doubt that in these stories of two women discovering their calling, everybody lives happily ever after: Child gets her cookbook published, Powell gets her book deal. So what’s to worry about? 

Streep’s impression, by the way, is spectacular. Note-perfect voice-wise, it also has a wonderful physicality – shoulders hunched, imitation 6-foot-plus frame swaying. (Streep’s actually more like 5-foot-6.) 

And there’s still more evidence of acting genius – a wordless sequence of food-tasting rapture, a sudden breakdown at the news that her sister is having a child. Watch what she does with her right hand during a scene of sexual play with Tucci. 

Adams is also highly watchable as the post-9/11 insurance worker who finds herself while cooking every one of Child’s complex recipes. Paris is divine, the food is gorgeous, and the couples’s relationships both lovely. 

It all makes for a surefire, though totally unchallenging, summer hit. Given Prada and Mamma Mia!, it’s obvious that Streep, et al., have mastered the art of reeling in that female audience.

Bon appétit!