On some Hollywood actresses an apron would look all wrong. Amy Adams, however, wears the mantle of housework with a generous willingness that compensates for the occasional clumsiness of her lily white hands. After her stint in house cleaning and trash removal in "Sunshine Cleaning," Hollywood seems to have pegged her as the go-to-girl for domestic labor.
Witness Adams in "Julie and Julia," as she plays real-life New York office worker/blogger Julie Powell who endeavored to make all 524 recipes in 365 days from the legendary "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child — and wrote up the whole blood, sweat and tears process on her home computer. This was in 2002, and as Julie cooked her way from poached eggs to boeuf bourguignon, the blog became a megahit, was subsequently published and now adapted to the screen with much foodie insight by Nora Ephron, herself an accomplished cook and cookbook author. (Interestingly, Ephron in HER autobiographical novel, "Heartburn," recounts how she left her philandering husband and made straight for the airport with the same Julia Child cookbook crammed in her suitcase!)
So Julia's book, first published in 1961 and a vital, defining factor in both Julie's novel and the director Ephron's life, appears with reverent consistency in the movie. But in a stroke of genius, Ephron doesn't just dip into the pages, she recreates Julia herself (played wonderfully by Meryl Streep) and true to the title, zigzags back and forth from two time periods — post World War II and present day; two women — the authoress and blogger; and two cities — Paris and New York.