Monday Movie Review: Judy
When I first saw the trailer for Judy, I was beyond. excited. I had a real thing for old movie musicals when I was a kid, and Judy Garland was legend. And Renee Zellweger has always been one of my favorites. But I left the theater with mixed feelings.
Judy mostly focuses on a period later in Judy Garland’s life, when she is broke, divorced, and forced to move to London to perform nightly in order to make any kind of money. She is separated from her kids so they can live a more stable life with their father, Sidney Luft. Judy struggles with insomnia, is clearly addicted to pills, and is most likely an alcoholic. She’s a mess, and these shows in London are her only chance to make enough money to be able to get her kids back. At first, she is a nightmare to work with, but she eventually befriends her handler Rosalyn (Jessie Buckley) and her bandleader Burt (Royce Pierreson). She finds some success on the stage in London, but after a fifth failed marriage to Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock), she slips back into her old ways, showing up late or drunk or high. The audiences don’t take too kindly to her antics and she is fired. A postscript informs us Judy died six months after her London run. Interspersed with all of these later in life scenes are short snippets of Judy’s time working on Wizard of Oz and what her life was like under the thumb of Louis B. Mayer.
For the first half hour of this movie, I was really worried it was going to be absolutely dreadful. And honestly, some moments were. If it weren’t for the stellar performances, mostly from Zellweger, but also from the supporting cast, I might have legit fallen asleep. The story just wasn’t there for me. I can’t even really put my finger on why I didn’t like it, I just know that I was stoked for this movie and it fell short of my expectations. I liked the scenes from young Judy’s life (I think they would make an interesting movie all on their own), but they felt completely isolated from the rest of the film. And while there were so many opportunities to delve deeper into some plot points-her addiction, her relationship to her kids (Liza makes a five second appearance in the movie, but other than that she’s a nonentity), her fifth marriage-everything seemed to just skim the surface. It was like there were too many options, so rather than go deep on one, we got the barest hint of all of them.
There are a couple of standout scenes in the film. One being when Judy goes out to dinner after a performance with two fans who come to all of her shows. It’s late and nothing is open so they end up back at this couple’s home. The whole scene is beautifully played, and it gives a real insight into how lonely Judy was-that she would spend her entire evening in the company of strangers (fans nonetheless) because it was preferable to going back to her hotel alone. And she creates a real friendship with both of the men, and it’s one of the most relatable relationships in the movie. The other most notable relationships are the ones formed between Judy and Rosalyn and Judy and Burt. I was lacking that kind of development in the relationship between Judy and Mickey and Judy and her kids (and if the point in that was that she felt closer to her fans and employees than her family, the delivery was off).
The final scene of the film is what really got to me. Judy sits alone on the edge of the stage and sings “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to her final audience in London and it’s a tear-jerker. I cried more than I would like to admit. Because I already know a fair amount about her life and what she went through, it was pretty heart-breaking to watch her go through that final performance, knowing she had been rejected yet again. Had I not already had that knowledge of her life, I don’t know that it would have made such an impact.
I think one of the reasons this movie felt so lacking right now is we’re coming off of Fosse/Verdon, which in a lot of ways, felt similar to the story Judy was trying to tell. And in comparing Zellweger’s performance to Michelle Williams’s as Gwen Verdon, Zellweger’s doesn’t live up-and her performance is one of the best things in the movie. Perhaps I would have enjoyed Judy more if that comparison weren’t looming in the back of my mind (and on that note, if you haven’t watched Fosse/Verdon yet, get on it-talk about brilliant storytelling).
Overall, despite some stellar performances, Judy was a miss for me. And it breaks my heart to say that because I wanted to love it. I give it a C+.
