Academy Award winner Renée
Zellweger (Cold Mountain) takes on the role of a 20th century iconic in singer Judy Garland thirty years after her starring making role as “Dorothy”
in "The Wizard of Oz,".
Both a beloved actress and
singer the film’s story picks up in the winter of 1968 as Judy Garland arrives
in London to perform five weeks of sold-out shows at the Talk of the Town
nightclub. And while her voice has weakened, its dramatic intensity has only
grown. The film shows as she prepares for the show her battles with management,
her interaction and charms with musicians and her reminiscing with friends and
adoring fans though the backdrop of her intelligent wit and personal warmth. London
also was a time of a whirlwind romance with Mickey Deans, her soon-to-be fifth
husband.
Featuring some of her
best-known songs, the film “Judy” celebrates the voice, her capacity for love,
and the sheer pizzazz of one of the world's greatest vocal entertainers ever.
REVIEW: “Judy” is based on Peter Quilter's play “End of the Rainbow,” which had a
well-received Broadway run in 2012 and it feels like a theatrical play too. After watching
the film I can only imagine how the play was probably way more effective to portraying such a complicated person and equally complicated life as the film and the person Judy Garland is a rare blended examination of a person’s triumphs, her
despairs, her loves and her agonizing sadness. So with so much to tell and to be able to tell it exactly right, it was a bit of a surprise for me and to see Renée
Zellweger chosen for the role. And while she was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Picture Winner Chicago for her singing and acting there, in a rare TV interview she acknowledges her own surprise for being
approached as a clear nonprofessional singer for this role.
Make no mistake about for me Zellweger is a highly accomplished actress, but it seemed to be more than just a passing challenge for
anyone to seriously consider take on such a daunting and powerful singing voice that was filled with rare vibrancy,
soaring range, depth and emotional color - color like a rainbow. So with that in mind Renee captures exceptionally well at being an effective interpreter of Garland songs. If you see the film and then Youtube Garland there is an uncanny resemblance to her............when she is speaking. Its the times she is singing her famous songs that you hear her struggle a bit, especially when it was the musical timing, the musical lyrics, the vocalizing of notes in trying to capture that rare unique sound which made Garland a unique and talented presence encapsulated in such a tiny 5’1” barely 100 pounds frame.
There is a lot of buzz talk about Zellweger
getting a Best Actress nomination for her role here. On numerous occasions it
was eerie to see what look like Garland reincarnated on the screen as Zellweger
looked, sounded like Garland; even capturing her unusual personal ticks and
stage performance gesticulations she was known for, but I would hardly say its top five Oscar
worthy. Zellweger has all of the technical perfection of her character down pat, but it sometime
falls a bit off in capturing the emotional truth of who Garland actually was. The real Judy Garland was a hot
mess but even at her worse moment she was a mesmerizing authentically talented hot mess and that is hard to replicate no matter the level of the trained talent. When Judy sang she did not just sing the lyrics to a melody, she was totally committed to the life of every single note in a song. She lived her songs. She was a phenomenal talent.
On a side note, I researched to see how
many non-singers have won Oscars for actually singing and or portraying
singers. Sissy Spacek “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and Jeff Bridges “Crazy Heart”. Jaime Foxx and Rami Malek played famous
singers. And some pop singers have won Oscars for singing and or not ranging Barbra
Streisand, Cher and Jennifer Hudson. In other words, it would not surprise me
the film and Zellweger both getting nominated with Renee winning as Best Actress. It appears Hollywood loves singing stories no matter who is doing it..
“Judy” is a full two hours fascinating story,
especially the parts of her early years where you see Louis B Mayer the co-founder
of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios who discovered Judy. His emotional abuse of Garland by today standards would be criminal and it was his actions that sowed
the seeds of Judy's heavy use of barbiturates, sleeping pills, alcohol and other prescribed drugs that resulted in her
death at the young age of 47.
I was a bit emotionally worn out
after watching this film as you can see Garland was a decent woman and a loving mother
who had the misfortune of an endless array of men in her life always taking advantage of her acting literately as leaches. Just wearing her down to an exhausted death. But in the end and on balance, I found “Judy” lovingly enough, nuanced enough, emotional
enough and dark enough of a showcase for one of Hollywood’s most beloved stars whose life had too few joys and way too many lows.
3.25 Stars
