Meryl Streep: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

3. Julia Child €“ Julie & Julia (2009)

Speaking of which, remember Julie & Julia? Probably not, because it wasn't a particularly great film €“ produced in the wake of other feel-good movies that seem to be based on cookery books, alongside Julia Roberts's Eat, Pray, Love €“ and because Streep's character, the real life chef and TV personality Julia Child, isn't quite the cultural touchstone in the UK she is in the US. It doesn't help that the concept of the film is gossamer thin. Based on a true story, but not much of one, the film follows young New Yorker Julie Powell (Amy Adams) as she runs each of the 524 recipes in Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking for a blog she calls the Julie/Julia project, contrasted with the early years of Child's culinary career. Julie & Julia is one of the few examples of Streep overstepping the mark a little with her performance as a real-life figure. Something she always manages is to stop her character from ever falling into caricature, embodying a personality rather than being boiled down to some recognisable catchphrase and the like. Which isn't the case here, sadly.