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.
