Nora Ephron’s slight, tender, gentle breeze of a comedy,

“Julie & Julia,” falls between all the familiar cracks. Although not an epicurean tease in the manner of “Chocolat” or “Tortilla Soup” or “Eat Drink Man Woman,” food never strays far from center stage. Fine dining is the plot and also the foil in the entwined biographies of two women, separated by generations and circumstance, who use their cooking acumen as both hobby and therapeutic salve, as a recipe for inner happiness.

Back in 1949, an unknown Julia Child arrives in Paris and turns to cooking to pass time while her affectionate husband tends to his duties at the American embassy. Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci play the couple with such ease and low-key charm that one can easily slip into this credible (albeit rosecolored) depiction of marital bliss.

Flash forward a half-century. An unknown Julie Powell uses food to escape the mental stress of her 9to5 job. Seeking asylum in her tiny New York kitchen, she decides to complete all 524 recipes in Child’s classic “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” Her husband suggests a deadline of one year and that she write a blog of her experiences.

And thus Julie Powell’s life becomes inextricably connected to Julia Child’s.

One can certainly expect Streep and Tucci (who starred with Tony Shalhoub in one of my favorite gastronomic delights, 1996’s delicious “Big Night”) to carry a film of this ilk, but I do believe the icing on “Julie & Julia’s” cinematic cake is how easily Amy Adams and Chris Messina slip into their roles as a modern couple coping with the problems of not being Julia Child.

The film offers us a wellchoreographed flip-flop of Julia in Paris and Julie in Brooklyn, neither woman seeking the fame and fortune that, to their surprise, eventually finds them.

One might also term the film a love story—not its primary concern, but one can’t help but feel the love abound—and, at long last, here’s a film primarily about women whose husbands are faithful, nurturing and welladjusted. My God, if these people were any more stable, we’d have to label “Julie & Julia” a fantasy, just too unbelievable to be true.

If there’s a criticism here it’s that, if one isn’t fully immersed in Streep as Child and Adams as Powell, one may find some of the film’s less imperative moments plodding (Child’s sister’s wedding, for instance, or Powell in her workaday grey cubicle). However, for those of us infatuated by the characterizations, I suspect these snippets will slip by with their own subtle charm.

If you’re coming straight out of “Transformers” or “G.I. Joe,” then “Julie & Julia” may affront your overstimulated senses with its leisurely gait. This one’s a sensitive, cheerful film, an intentionally slow ride.

I have no problems with feelgood films slipping into the summer maelstrom of death, darkness and dangerous situations (especially as “2012” approaches). At the box office, blood, angst and the everfrequent undead might serve as Hollywood’s main course, but for dessert, a gentle, sweet film is always okay by me.