Streep's portrayal doesn't fall short

By BY JOHN ANDERSON NEWSDAY

Posted: August 7, 2009 at 4:24 a.m.

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NEW YORK — For Julie & Julia, Meryl Streep said, she based her portrayal of TV chef Julia Child partly on her mother, who had "an undeniable sense of joie de vivre" - or joy for life, and a tenuous relationship with the kitchen.

"My mother's motto was, 'If it's not done in 20 minutes, it's not dinner.'" As a kid, Streep said, she once found herself watching the neighbors carving up what she thought were "tennis balls." They were potatoes.

"Those aren't potatoes," Streep recalled thinking. "Potatoes came in a box."

But such was the world to which the larger-than-life Julia Child brought her book and herself in the mid-1960s, the apron-clad universe of American "cuisine" that she led by the hand, from the woefulness of Irish spaghetti (pasta awash in Campbell's tomato soup) to the high-wire-and-wine adventures of beef bourguignon. For New York women like Nora Ephron, Child'sbook was the bible.

"I had already done many, many of the recipes from Julia before she went on the air," said Ephron. "The book came out in '62 and she didn't go on the air till about '64, '65. I, meanwhile, was slicing and dicing away, because that's what you did in New York - you cooked from that cookbook. Or be ashamed of yourself. People were always saying things at dinner parties, 'Is this Julia's ... ?'"

This time around, Ephron - the writer-director of such frothy confections as Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail and Bewitched - has attempted the cinema version of lemon souffle, essentially two new movies under one title.Julie & Julia, which opens today, is based on My Life in France (by Child and her grandnephew Alex Prud'homme) and on author Julie Powell's yearlong effort to cook - and blog - her way through Child's landmark Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Amy Adams portrays Powell; Chris Messina plays her husband, Eric; Stanley Tucci is Julia's husband, Paul; and Streep - all 5 feet,6 inches of her - plays Child, who was, oh, about 6-foot-3. Given the demands of perspective and illusion, this height differential leads one to think of the casting call for Julie & Julia as a remake of Under the Rainbow.

"It's true, absolutely true," says Ephron, admitting she had to hire every short actor in Hollywood (OK, an overstatement). "They weren't midgets - that's not fair. But it's absolutely true. When we'd be on the street, Meryl would cast an eye on the tall extra and ask politely that they be put further away from her. And there's no question that there were all kinds of wonderful actresses I ruled out for Louisette and Simca" - two of Child's Paris friends - "because they were tall."

Few women come as tall as Child, who wasn't just physically imposing: She was a pioneer, in the kitchen and the battle of the sexes.

Though hardly a feminist firebrand - as Ephron put it, her subject didn't "become" Julia Child until she was almost 50 - Child was a vessel of passion. It might have been a passion for food, rather than conflict, that made her who she was (she died in 2004). But she was, without a doubt, a role model for women, and cooks of both sexes: Julie Powell's herculean effort to complete 524 recipes in 365 days was as much about the inspiration she got from Child as it was her own tenacity.

When asked, Adams said she hadn't met Powell ("We met through her blog," she offered), adding that her version of her character was approached through Ephron's words. Child, of course, is another story. "Everybody can do their own version of Julia Child," said Streep - who, as soon as she opens her mouth in the movie, cues our mental theme music to The French Chef. But, she added, "How do we know if we're doing Julia or Dan Aykroyd?"

Aykroyd's high-pitched, hemorrhaging Julia Stepchild of Saturday Night Live fame remains indelible enough to be included in the film. But in addition to her mother, Streep said, her Julia was based partly on Powell's elevated image of the older woman - half real, half whisk-wielding angel.

MovieStyle, Pages 34 on 08/07/2009

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