Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on December 2009

This thinking chick-flick intercuts the story of legendary TV chef Julia Child—who is credited with introducing edible food to American kitchens in the mid-20th century via her 1961 book Mastering the Art of French Cooking—with the somewhat less interesting tale of a 21st-century woman who made a name for herself with a blog about cooking her way through all of Julia’s 524 recipes in a year. The best ingredient is Streep, whose absolute inhabiting of her character is nothing short of uncanny, overcoming the film’s structural problems, and any movie with Amy Adams in it is worth a viewing.