Judy

I have never before been so baffled by a movie, I found this one very difficult to review, and I will explain why, the movie itself did nothing for me, but the performance of Renee Zellweger, was nothing short of brilliant.

I was aware that Judy had a hard life, I wasn't aware just how hard her life was. It doesn't put Hollywood, and those that pulled the strings in a particularly good light, she was a tool to make money from.

It was nicely made, the story flows well, if I were more of a Judy Garland lover I may have scored it a bit higher, Zellweger is outstanding as I say, bits of it just left me a little flat. 6/10

My wife and I watched this at home on BluRay from our public library. Renee really does give an award-quality performance. And she did in fact win the Oscar for Best Actress.

Who has never seen "The Wizard of Oz"? What would that movie be without Judy Garland as Dorothy? The early but difficult stages of a very significant career.

In this new biopic Renée Zellweger gives one of her better performances as Judy Garland, and her singing is very appropriate. She won the Golden Globe for Best Actress. While biopics don't have lots of latitude, if they follow the factual life of the subject, they can be done dryly or they can be done with a spark. This one has that spark.

One spark I really enjoyed was when a couple of men, fans, encountered her after a London performance, just the three of them in the alley. She innocently asks if they want to go get food with her, they all end up in the apartment cooking eggs. That was Judy, off stage just another human willing to connect with ordinary people.

This movie is a very worthwhile look at the life of Judy Garland, focusing both on her early years and mostly on her last year when she died in 1969 at the age of 47. See it for Judy, or see it for Renee, or see it for both. It is a memorable movie of a memorable singer.

Judy Garland (Renée Zellweger) arrives in London in 1968 to headline a series of showcase performances. She is struggling with addictions, health problems, custody of her kids, and a lifetime of pressure to perform. Rosalyn Wilder (Jessie Buckley) is the overwhelmed producer trying to keep the unstable Judy on time. It doesn't help when Judy's boyfriend Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock) arrives. He becomes her fifth husband and one more disappointment. In flashbacks, a young Judy (Darci Shaw) is under tremendous pressure from Louis B. Mayer to perform.

Zellweger's performance is terrific. Her only small flaw is her singing and that's not her fault. She is asked to embody both greatness and struggle. It's a high degree of difficulty. It would work better if all her singing is live and there is less of it. It leads me to the bigger problem of the structure of the movie. It should squeeze the movie down to her last two performances. The story has no ticking clock and feels meandering at times. The solution is to concentrate the timeline down to a couple of days. The opening with the kids can be better placed in a flashback. The best scene is the dinner with the gay couple and that would be a great antidote after the bad performance. It doesn't need Mickey's arrival and the quickie marriage. He's fine as the constant sycophant who disappoints. The structure flattens the emotional and dramatic tension of the film. Through it all, Zellweger's performance is terrific.

Greetings again from the darkness. It's been 80 years since THE WIZARD OF OZ was released and 50 years since Judy Garland died. So why do we still care so much? Of course the obvious reason is that, for many generations, her adventures as Dorothy Gale from Kansas marked the first time many of us kids could put ourselves in the shoes (mine weren't ruby sparkles) of a lead character in a movie. Her fantastical journey ignited our imaginations and whisked us away to fight witches and flying monkeys, while making wonderful friends in a corn patch and enchanted forest. Oh, and that voice! However, there is another side to this coin. Judy's story is also an example of the dark and tarnished side of Hollywood ... she pulled back more than one curtain.

Renee Zellweger (Oscar winner for COLD MOUNTAIN, 2003) stars as Judy Garland, and her performance will likely put her in line for her fourth Oscar nomination. The film basically covers the last year of Judy's life, and director Rupert Goold (TRUE STORY, 2015) is working from a script by Tom Edge adapted from Peter Quilter's stage play, "End of the Rainbow". There is no Lollipop Guild here. Instead, the harsh realities of Judy's life are explored. The film opens with Judy and her kids, Joe and Lorna, performing on stage ... and then being unceremoniously denied a room at a nearby luxury hotel. See, Judy's career is in a bad way (admittedly undependable and uninsurable) - as is her health. She is broke, has no home, and offers for roles or performances have dried up. She ends up at her ex-husband Sid Luft's (Rufus Sewell) home, which after some former-spouse bickering, is where the kids stay.

With no other real prospective gigs, Judy accepts an offer from Bernard Delfont (Michael Gambon) to perform at his Talk of the Town theatre in London. Most of the film covers her time in London, and the challenges for all involved. She's 46 years old in the winter of 1968, and though her voice no longer carries the sublime purity of those early years, Judy still has incredible stage presence and an ability to connect with the audience. The challenges occur for her assigned assistant Rosalyn Wilder (who served as a consultant on the film, and is played here by rising star Jessie Buckley), as well as Judy herself. She misses her kids, and is battling loneliness and an addiction to pills - causing her to rarely eat or sleep. When her "friend" (and fifth husband) Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock) shows up, Judy's attitude perks up, but her already questionable dependability falters.

Flashbacks to Judy's teenage years at MGM are used to portray how the studio and industry took control of her body, soul and career. Watching studio head Louis B Mayer (Richard Cordery) bully young Judy (played by newcomer Darci Shaw) by pretending to be a father figure while keeping her weight in line with a diet of cigarettes, diet pills, and soup, is just painful. These scenes, including those with young Judy's frequent co-star Mickey Rooney, help us understand why she was in such a state by the time she hit London. Ms. Zellweger embodies the blend of frailty and determination and talent, as well as the insecurities that simultaneously drove Judy and held her back. Of course, few singers have ever possessed the vocal talent of Judy, but Zellweger admirably brings the appropriate strain and pain to the songs she sings for the movie, including "By Myself" and "The Trolley Song".

Born Frances Ethel Gumm, Judy Garland first hit the stage at age 2, and never experienced a "normal" childhood or traditional relationship. Despite her immense talent, she was never able to find peace with the pressures of performing. Years of abuse led to an early death, not long after she finished her London run. The film never backs away from the tragic story, but also allows one of the brightest stars of an era to shine through. For those who only know Judy as that homesick girl from Kansas, or maybe also as the rosy-cheeked youngster on the Trolley in the holiday favorite MEET ME IN ST LOUIS (directed by her future husband Vincente Minnelli), there is likely a shock factor in seeing the broken icon in middle age. The film also deals with that always-present bond she had with her audience, especially with the gay community - although a certain sequence of the film seems quite improbable.

For a film like this to work (it was not sanctioned by Judy's daughter Liza Minnelli), it all rides on the lead performance. Renee Zellweger beautifully captures both the tragic essence and the stunning talent of the late 1960's Judy Garland, an iconic and revered entertainment figure. The film allows us to understand the lifelong mistreatment and heartbreak of this woman, as well as the strength and joy she received while performing live. Balancing the "early" Judy with the "later" Judy was a brilliant way of bringing her life full circle. Ms. Zellweger's performance goes so much deeper than singing on stage ... she embodies the insecurity and frailties of a woman who was never afforded the opportunity to live her own life.

NOTE: There was a 2001 TV mini-series entitled "Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows", based on daughter Lorna Luft's memoir, in which Judy Davis (lip-synching to Ms. Garland's songs) delivered an impressive and Emmy winning performance.

I caught this film at this year's TIFF, and can confirm the raves for Renee Zellweger's performance as Judy Garland -- it definitely is one of the year's best. But I had problems with the film overall. There's just too much left out to make for a legitimate biopic.

The biggest omission: daughter Liza Minelli. At the time depicted in this movie, she was 23, already making movies, and on a career trajectory that would result in an Oscar three years later (before her career admittedly went off a cliff). But here she pretty much doesn't exist - only Garland's two later children do.

And when you reflect upon it, there's a lot more missing in this film. It also treats the period between Garland's Wizard of Oz/Andy Hardy MGM days and her final gig doing a London stage show in 1969 as a big blank, even though there were successes along the way well into the 60's, including two Oscar nominations and a Grammy award for Album of the Year. (Also a short-lived television show where she did a memorable duet with a 21-year-old Barbara Streisand.) Considering the range of celebrities she worked with, the opportunities for quality namedropping are limitless - but aside from Mickey Rooney, there's a pronounced lack of it

There are problems with inclusion as well. In real life, Garland had so many gay admirers that she gave rise to the "FOD" (Friends of Dorothy) acronym as slang for gays. In the movie, this angle is treated in very shorthand fashion by two completely fictional gay admirers of her London shows.

The film reminded me a lot of JACKIE from 2016, where Natalie Portman played Jackie Kennedy. Her performance was certainly Oscar-worthy -- and she did get nominated - but I had problems with the presentation, particularly how Kennedy's funeral was depicted as a national day of mourning. Zellweger is similarly a nomination lock riding in a flawed vehicle.