In Tough Times, an Actress Tries to Find Her Rainbow

Renée Zellweger in "Judy"
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

Judy Garland is, without a doubt, one of the most iconic film actresses of all time.  Between her beloved breakout role in “The Wizard Oz,” other musicals like “Meet Me in St. Louis,” “Easter Parade,” “Summer Stock,” and the ‘50s version of “A Star Is Born,” and her dramatic turn in “Judgment at Nuremberg,” her career can be classified as one-of-a-kind.

Having appeared in films for nearly three decades, it was only a matter of time before this screen legend received a theatrical film about her life.  We’re given one with Rupert Goold’s “Judy,” a biopic that brings us a stunning portrayal of Garland through the film’s lead performance.

In 1969, Judy Garland (Renée Zellweger) is divorced from her third husband, Sidney Luft (Rufus Sewell), and fighting to maintain custody of her children.  In order to earn more money for a stable living, Judy decides to take up the offer to perform for a five-week run of concerts at the Talk of the Town music hall in London.  While doing so, Judy also must come face to face with her depression and substance abuse.

Zellweger’s performance is one where you rarely think that you’re watching an actress portraying a character, but is instead one where you believe that the person that they’re playing is there on screen.  She throws herself into the role to bring Garland’s larger-than-life aura to realization.  This is a performance where Zellweger excels in showing Garland’s passion for entertaining and bringing joy to her audience.  With Zellweger’s mastery of Garland’s mannerisms and her voice, this is a full embodiment of a legend in the entertainment industry.

Although Zellweger’s performance is fantastic all of the way through, it comes to an emotional peak when Garland givers her last performance at Talk of the Town. With her upbeat performance of “Come Rain Or Come Shine” to her bittersweet rendition of “Over the Rainbow,” Zellweger shows Garland redeeming herself to give her audience a show that reminds them of why they fell in love with her in the first place.  Zellweger’s work in this film is an outstanding tribute to Garland that will engage not only fans of classic Hollywood stars, but all moviegoers.

The film has fine supporting performances, including Jessie Buckley as Garland’s personal assistant and Finn Wittrock as Mickey Deans, who was Garland’s fifth and last husband, but the one that stands out is Darci Shaw, who plays a young Judy.  In these sequences, we see how committed Judy is to her profession, but also the physical and emotional toll that it has on her, with Judy being on a restricted diet and not given much time to sleep.  Between these few scenes, Shaw is able to convey the stress that being a young movie star has on Garland, and therefore, we have a better understanding as to why Garland suffers from the problems that she faces later in her life.

The screenplay by Tom Edge, which is based on Peter Quilter’s musical, “End of the Rainbow,” can get a little repetitive in showing Garland’s drug and alcohol addictions and the side effects that follow, but the narrative makes up for this when it delivers scenes that bring out the strong emotions of Garland’s journey in trying to clean up her life.

The flashbacks that we see throughout the film that focus on Garland’s earlier years in Hollywood are some of the best of the film.  Garland had an illustrious career, and although the flashbacks that are included supply details pertaining to problems that she encountered near the beginning of her career, I wish that the movie was a little longer so that we could have had a few more of these flashbacks to provide us with more of a background concerning the issues that Garland carried from a young age into adulthood.

The direction by Goold can make the film feel like a television movie at times; but, with the help of cinematography by Ole Bratt Birkeland, Goold is still able to bring us some memorable scenes that absorb us into the film.  One such scene is a long take that occurs in the first few minutes that brings us through the set for “The Wizard of Oz,” calling forth the happiness that we have with seeing the yellow brick road laid out, but also showing the difficulties that such a production and its studio executives placed on Dorothy.

It’s also worth mentioning the scene in which Garland gives the final performance of her engagement at the Talk of the Town.  In this scene, Goold captures an abundance of the emotion and magic that Garland transmitted from the stage, bringing us a sequence that is sure to leave you misty eyed as Garland puts all that she can into her performance.

“Judy” may play out like a traditional biopic at times, but it’s still a loving tribute to an entertainer who dedicated her life to instilling joy in the hearts of her fans, and as you watch this movie, you’ll feel the happiness that I’m sure her audiences must have felt.

Grade: B+