Julie & Julia

"Julie & Julia" is a movie that almost completely works. Oscar winner Meryl Streep and Oscar-nominated Amy Adams play the title characters, Julia Child and Julie Powell, and both are wonderful. Julie Powell's side of the story, however, is bogged down with an unworthy hubby who the audience is meant to like but came off as less than impressive for me.

Julia Child's storyline opens on Child trying to decide what she wants to do with her life. She is less than thrilled at the prospect of being a housewife, and she takes up a number of hobbies such as hat-making and bridge. None of these diversions interest her, but everything changes when she decides to enroll in cooking school.

Julie Powell's story starts out similarly. Powell, an aspiring writer, is working at a call center for 9/11 victims and their families, and though she tries to convince herself she is doing good, her work is depressing and difficult. Her friends are shallow, untalented and wildly successful in their careers, and they enjoy meeting for lunch to rub it in her face. Powell's only escape from the day's work is cooking delicious food for her husband Eric (Chris Messina, "Away We Go"). One night, she combines her two loves, writing and cooking, and she decides to cook her way through Julia Child's famous cookbook in a year and write an online blog about the experience.

Child and Powell's stories parallel each other more and more as they progress. They run into problems. Child is the only woman in her cooking class, but she is determined to succeed and impress the men at the school. In one of the funniest scenes in the film, Child's husband Paul (Stanley Tucci, "The Devil Wears Prada") comes home to find her furiously chopping an enormous pile of onions. Powell also suffers a few set-backs and has a few small melt-downs, but she eventually chops, boils, broils, bakes, and poaches her way through Child's entire book.

The story is inspiring without getting too sappy. The leads are entertaining. Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci show off the same chemistry they had in "The Devil Wears Prada," and their love story is completely adorable. All these parts are in place, so what is "Julie & Julia" missing?

Powell's romantic storyline does not live up to the rest of the movie. Her husband is somewhat supportive of her project until it starts to affect him, mainly their sex life. When Julie suffers a major set-back, he yells at her, calls her selfish and egotistical and storms out. Julie wins him back with a blog entry where she writes about what a good man she has lost, but when Eric moved back in, I did not care. I was glad that Julie was happy again, but I did not care for her husband. I'm not sure if it was a problem with actor Chris Messina or the screenplay. Either way, this part of the film did not work for me.

Aside from this misstep, "Julie & Julia" is a fun and tasty little movie, and with great performances from Streep, Adams and Tucci. I think that audiences and critics will leave the theater pleasantly surprised.