Judy. (15.)
Directed by Rupert Goold.
Starring Renee Zellweger, Jessie Buckley, Finn Wittrock, Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon and Andy Nyman. 118 mins.
The Judy is Garland and her film is a rerun of Stan & Ollie - the story of a faded Hollywood icon on a tour of England promoted by Bernard Delfont (Gambon) - only much less cheerful It starts with the young Garland (Darci Shaw) receiving a pep talk on the yellow brick road with Louis B Mayer who is trying to crush her spirit by insisting her specialness meant that she would have to forgo the attributes of a normal childhood: free time, fun, food. (In his obsession with controlling the food intake of his female stars Mayer is a foreruner of Harvey Goldstein.) Three decades later she is bankrupt, has four ex-husbands, can't sleep, survives on booze and pills and is doing a six week residency at the Talk Of The Town, (with Lonnie Donnegan as a support act) hoping to earn enough to get back custody of her children.
Judged as an impression Zellwegger's Garland doesn't totally cut it: every now and again her distinctive squinty smile breakthrough. As a performance though it is way more than an uncanny make up job. Zellwegger does her own singing and some of her best moments are on stage. As someone who, if I'd been around in 1969, would probably have preferred to see king of skiffle Donnegan, she does a great job of persuading a sceptic she was special.
The film's problem is that, based loosely on a play, it is almost too small to fill the screen. Certainly it struggles to hide how limited the budget is. When an ex-husband (Sewell) turns up and takes her out for a drink they end up in the tattiest bar you can imagine.
Predictably the film concludes, Spoiler, with a performance of Over The Rainbow. After she has been sacked for her unreliable behaviour she has to sneak on stage to perform and halfway through the number she breaks down and the audience stand and conclude it for her. It's crassly sentimental but undeniably moving. All I could think of though was how the hell is Lonnie Donnegan expected to follow that? That's totally knackered My Old Man's a Dustman for him.
Directed by Rupert Goold.
Starring Renee Zellweger, Jessie Buckley, Finn Wittrock, Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon and Andy Nyman. 118 mins.
The Judy is Garland and her film is a rerun of Stan & Ollie - the story of a faded Hollywood icon on a tour of England promoted by Bernard Delfont (Gambon) - only much less cheerful It starts with the young Garland (Darci Shaw) receiving a pep talk on the yellow brick road with Louis B Mayer who is trying to crush her spirit by insisting her specialness meant that she would have to forgo the attributes of a normal childhood: free time, fun, food. (In his obsession with controlling the food intake of his female stars Mayer is a foreruner of Harvey Goldstein.) Three decades later she is bankrupt, has four ex-husbands, can't sleep, survives on booze and pills and is doing a six week residency at the Talk Of The Town, (with Lonnie Donnegan as a support act) hoping to earn enough to get back custody of her children.
Judged as an impression Zellwegger's Garland doesn't totally cut it: every now and again her distinctive squinty smile breakthrough. As a performance though it is way more than an uncanny make up job. Zellwegger does her own singing and some of her best moments are on stage. As someone who, if I'd been around in 1969, would probably have preferred to see king of skiffle Donnegan, she does a great job of persuading a sceptic she was special.
The film's problem is that, based loosely on a play, it is almost too small to fill the screen. Certainly it struggles to hide how limited the budget is. When an ex-husband (Sewell) turns up and takes her out for a drink they end up in the tattiest bar you can imagine.
Predictably the film concludes, Spoiler, with a performance of Over The Rainbow. After she has been sacked for her unreliable behaviour she has to sneak on stage to perform and halfway through the number she breaks down and the audience stand and conclude it for her. It's crassly sentimental but undeniably moving. All I could think of though was how the hell is Lonnie Donnegan expected to follow that? That's totally knackered My Old Man's a Dustman for him.
