Movie Review: Judy

Judy *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Rupert Goold.

Written by: Tom Edge based on the play by Peter Quilter.

Starring: Renée Zellweger (Judy Garland), Jessie Buckley (Rosalyn Wilder), Finn Wittrock (Mickey Deans), Rufus Sewell (Sidney Luft), Michael Gambon (Bernard Delfont), Bella Ramsey (Lorna Luft), Gemma-Leah Devereux (Liza Minnelli), Gaia Weiss (Abbie), Fenella Woolgar (Margaret Hamilton), Andy Nyman (Dan), John Dagleish (Lonnie Donegan), Phil Dunster (Ben), Royce Pierreson (Burt), Darci Shaw (Young Judy).

 

As a film, Judy pretty much follows the clichéd fall of an icon biopic standards. It isn’t as by-the-numbers as Bohemian Rhapsody was – it doesn’t make you role your eyes with how it’s basically just a straight faced version of Walk Hard – but you know where the film is going when it begins, and it goes there. What makes the film good however is Renee Zellweger’s performance as the icon. It’s the type of performance where it illuminates something about its subject obviously, but it also illuminates something about the performer in the role. The Renee Zellweger who became one of the biggest stars in the world for a time – in films like Jerry Maguire, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Chicago and her Oscar winning role in Cold Mountain – doesn’t seem like someone you would cast as the late Judy Garland. But Zellweger isn’t that actress anymore. She stepped away from Hollywood – there was a six-year span where she did nothing at all (2010-2016) and she has only slowly started to comeback. She seems to understand something about Garland at this time – which whether true or not, works for the film. It is a remarkable performance, in what otherwise is a forgettable film.

 

The film takes place in 1968 – Garland hasn’t had a film role in 5 years – and its been longer than that since she has really been one of the biggest stars in the world. Drug use has made her unreliable, uninsurable and basically it has ruined her career. She is divorced, yet again, and has two young children – but she has no money, and nowhere to go. She gets an offer to do a series of shows in London – which should pay her enough to get a home, and her children back. And when she is on stage – and on her game – she is still a remarkable performer – someone who can hold the crowd in her grip, and not let go. But there’s always more drug, more booze – and another husband, who sees Garland more as a meal ticket than a spouse – lurking about – to sabotage whatever she wants to do.

 

Zellweger’s Garland is a mass of insecurities. She doesn’t want to be alone, and yet she isn’t particularly good at being around people. All she really wants is to be loved, to be wanted – and all she finds is people around her who want to exploit her. She is naïve in a way – she has been screwed around so much you would think she would cynical – but she isn’t. She keeps trusting people who she shouldn’t trust – but she cannot help it.

 

The movie does have more than its share of clichés – including a series of flashbacks to Garland’s childhood – when Louis B. Meyer did whatever he needed to do to get her in The Wizard of Oz, and keep her going and going and going. A series of handler give her whatever drugs she needs – uppers to keep her performing, keep the film on schedule, and then downers when she couldn’t sleep. It’s clichéd – even if it is true.

 

But even when the film falls into cliché – Zellweger holds it all together. Zellweger seems to understand things about this character that Garland herself didn’t understand. She is a product, a commodity to be used, and now that she is used up, they toss away. It’s exactly the performance Zellweger, at this point in her career, needed to deliver – and she doesn’t disappoint. If the film were up to her level, it would be a masterwork. It isn’t close – but it’s great to see Zellweger going full tilt again.