JUDY

  • 12 Oct - 18 Oct, 2019
  • Mag The Weekly
  • Reviews

Impersonating an icon is a dangerous business, but Renee Zellweger accomplishes the feat in Judy – a look at the last year in the life of Judy Garland. Director Rupert Goold’s movie sometimes stumbles, but it made one indispensable choice in finding the right actress to channel the diva.

This is not the first biopic about Garland. Judy Davis gave an extraordinary interpretation in a TV miniseries almost two decades ago, but in that case, Davis lip-synced to Garland’s original recordings. Since Judy takes place during Garland’s final London performances in the winter of 1968, when her voice was not at its best. Zellweger performed the songs herself, and she does a remarkable job without trying to match Garland at the peak of her vocal powers.

The film actually begins with a younger Judy (played by Darci Shaw) on the set of The Wizard of Oz. This opening scene is visually striking, but it starts the film on the wrong note. Tom Edge’s script then moves forward to the older Judy, caught in a morass of financial problems as well as a custody battle with ex-husband Sid Luft (Rufus Sewell). It is her financial desperation that leads her to jump at the offer for a series of concerts at a London supper club, and although her dependence on intoxicants makes this an iffy venture for a performer long past her prime, Judy does achieve some victories in her last attempt at a comeback. She also gets involved with a younger man, Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock), who became her fifth husband.

That’s not to say Judy is cheerful. The sweet gamine of her early years has given way to a squint-eyed specter with hunched shoulders, pursed lips, a persimmon smile and an obsession with making enough money to provide a stable home for the youngest two of her children, Lorna and Joey, who are currently living in California with their father, and her ex-husband, Sid Luft. Having children, she says, “is like having your heart outside your body.”

In other scenes of the singer in a state of disheveled disarray, Zellweger tells us everything we need to know about Judy’s damaged past – without any flashbacks. Then there are the musical performances, which are nothing short of extraordinary. Zellweger’s rendition of one of Garland’s classics, I’ll Go My Way by Myself, is a breathtaking tour de force, and the actress is equally electrifying when she sings Come Rain or Come Shine. Her final performance of Over the Rainbow, of course, cannot compare to the Garland’s original in The Wizard of Oz, but the aging Garland, her voice hoarse and broken, acknowledges that the audience will have to forgive her. This final sequence ends on an overly sentimental note, when the audience at the supper club stands to help her complete the song.

Goold is known primarily as a theater director. He sometimes tries a little too hard to make the material cinematic, but he certainly works beautifully with Zellweger, who brings off a bravura performance that even the notoriously sharp-witted Garland would have applauded.

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