There's something about exploiting exploitation that feels inherently icky. It's a sensation that plagues the entirety of director Rupert Goold's Judy, making an otherwise impeccable film seem at best misguided.
Based on Peter Quilter's musical drama End of the Rainbow,Judy tells the story of the legendary Judy Garland's final concert tour in 1969. Garland's London concerts, as they would come to be known, were a rocky last chapter in the star's turbulent public history.
Some nights she sang to full houses with the kind of bravado and zest you would expect from one of the world's greatest vocal performers. Other nights, she was so sleep-deprived and intoxicated it was impossible to get her on stage.
In all the dazzling effort, Judy misses its own prescient point.
On the nights she performed, when perhaps she shouldn't have, disgruntled audience members booed and threw food at her from all four levels of London's Talk of the Town theater. The press was similarly unkind.
With Oscar winner Renée Zellweger as its Garland, Judy tackles this tragic tale head-on. From a show-stopping rendition of "The Trolley Song" to countless behind-the-scenes meltdowns, the film is a meticulous recreation of Garland's final months. She died of a barbiturate overdose shortly after the London performances. She was 47 — three years younger than Zellweger is now.
The story of Garland's marriage to musician Mickey Deans is included, as is her distant relationship with her three children. A subplot surrounding Garland's connection to the LGBTQ community is among the film's more moving aspects, and Jessie Buckley's take on Rosalyn Wilder, Garland's London-based wrangler and personal assistant, is masterful.
And of course, as I'm sure you've heard, Zellweger is undeniably magnificent.
Renée Zellweger as Judy Garland in 'Judy.'Credit: David hindley / ld entertainmentStill, somehow, through all that dazzling effort, Judymisses its own prescient point.
Interspersed with Garland's later years are dream-like flashbacks to her nightmarish childhood, with 17-year-old Darci Shaw embodying a younger Judy. As viewers soon learn (if they didn't know it already), the Wizard of Oz star was continuously abused during her years with MGM — starved to maintain her figure, drugged to keep her disposition, and sexually assaulted by more than one studio executive.
Judy handles the delicate subject matter appropriately, never lingering too long on the specifics. But as the devastating scenes of a vulnerable young Judy are juxtaposed with the stormy ongoings of an older one, the irony of making a movie about this particular woman is apparent.
The before-and-after take on Garland's abuse has as much nuance as her Wikipedia page. Clumsy shots of Garland taking pills are as numerous as the film's rousing musical numbers. Her failures and triumphs are always bombastically, profitably entertaining.
Judy boils Garland down to her most interesting, amusing, and convenient parts, failing to capture any of the thirty years between Ozand her decline. Sure, you could call this "setting the record straight" or a loving homage. But in this broad-strokes approach, Judy, like so many of the takes on Garland that came before it, seems to worry more about itself than her.
No scene captures this better than "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
Zellweger pours her heart and soul into this final number in the film. Her audience members join in the singing, supporting her courageous effort to entertain just one more time. As Zellweger says the last line — "You won't forget me, will you? Promise you won't!" — tears are mandatory. You want to cry for Garland, and you want to cry for Zellweger.
But as the ever-so marketable film comes to a halt, palatably short of the two-hour mark, you're reminded what's really happening here. With a clumsy, multi-paragraph slate explaining how Garland died, Judy is over. It's the kind of lazy, wrap-up kicker that often accompanies true stories told poorly.
Time enough for Zellweger, just not time enough for Judy.
Judy had time to tell the fun and interesting parts of Garland's life, but not enough time to tell all of it. Not time enough to make her a person beyond the sound bites and the public dramas and the red glitter. Time enough for Zellweger, just not time enough for Judy.
In that sense, it's no wonder that Liza Minnelli, Garland's daughter (who is briefly depicted in the film) disavowed the project last year.
Garland was relentlessly abused by the industry peddling her talent. Eventually, that abuse killed her — and now, that abuse is back on screen making money for another film studio.
True Garland fans know what a miraculous-yet-tortured life this woman lived, and rehashing its more lurid bits isn't necessary. If the creators of Judy truly wanted to honor her and her talent, perhaps the best way would have been to leave her be and allow her recordings to sing for themselves.
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