Metacritic reviews

Being Julia flirts too heavily with soap opera clichés, but it has enough surprises to keep you guessing, and for Annette Bening it's the liveliest of comebacks.

Part of the movie's fascination is watching Ms. Bening play a role that tantalizingly mirrors her own position in today's movie world - and she does it with wit, sparkle, and all-out energy.

Because I so enjoyed the last 45 minutes, I'm tempted to recommend it. The problem is that you have to sit through an hour to get to the worthwhile parts.

Suggests a cross between "Sunset Boulevard" and "All About Eve." The suggestion, alas, doesn't go very far, but Bening's performance approaches the pantheon.

A minor affair, a confection based on dalliances and the way a set of sophisticated theater people handle them, that lacks true distinction.

But for all Bening’s high emoting and her trademark giggle, here overused to the point of annoyance, for most of its length Being Julia offers little insight into a woman whose life is ruled by theatrics.

Being Julia may not make much psychological or dramatic sense, but Ms. Bening, pretending to be Julia (who is always pretending to be herself), is sensational.

Hungarian director Istvan Szabo (Sunshine) overplays his hand and traps Bening in a role that's all emoting, no emotion.

It looks handsome but seems infected by the idea of playing different roles; a comedy in one scene, it adopts a mood of a high seriousness the next and clutters the stage with minor characters that contribute little. In the end, this inability to make up its mind does the film in.

Bening's comic gifts make the most of Ronald Harwood's witty screenplay, though she falls flat in her character's rare moments of sincerity.