JUDY – Review

Renee Zellweger gives a knockout performance as the legendary Judy Garland, in a biopic set in her later years. as the star struggles to make a living, battles alcoholism and self-destructive behavior and tries to keep her two young children close. JUDY takes a sympathetic view of the star in her twilight years, a difficult time when she was still famous enough to draw crowds but when her voice was fading and her reputation for unreliability made it hard to find work.

Renee Zellweger’s turn as Judy Garland is the film’s major asset. The film, which is based on the play “End of the Rainbow” by Peter Quilty, is directed by Rupert Goold. Zellweger’s outstanding performance captures Judy Garland’s personal charm, warmth and vulnerability, the things that drew fans to her along with her golden voice. JUDY is a film for Judy Garland fans, although it has plenty to offer those less familiar with the legendary star, so it takes a sympathetic view of the star but one willing to be honest about her flaws. Few stars of the Hollywood Golden Age have endured as legends in the minds of fans like Judy Garland. Garland’s personal story reads like a Hollywood movie itself – a childhood in vaudeville, the sudden fame brought by her great talent and warm screen presence in THE WIZARD OF OZ, and her tragic decline. All it lacked was the Hollywood ending.

JUDY touches on all that but takes a more intimate approach, focusing only on the star in her final years, with a few flashbacks to her time as a teenager at the MGM studio filming THE WIZARD OF OZ. But like the excellent biopic about Laurel and Hardy, STAN AND OLLIE, JUDY does not cover Garland’s whole life and career, instead focuses on the poignant, tragic end, while evoking the height of t her stardom in flashbacks. In this case, the flashbacks especially serve as a device to give insights on the subject herself.

Mostly, the film focuses on Garland as a devoted mother, struggling to support and care for the children she clearly loves, while battling her own insecurities and dependence on alcohol and a mix of amphetamines and sleeping pills, a legacy of her movie studio childhood. It is a heart-tugging portrait of maternal love, made all the more poignant by the fact that it is the great Judy Garland in this struggle.

As the film opens, Garland (Zellweger) is on stage performing for a crowd, with her two young children, Lorna (Bella Ramsey) and Joey (Lewin Lloyd), joining her from the wings for a final bow. The meager pay she is given after the show tips us off that Dorothy is a long way from Kansas at this grim point in her career. While she is still famous and able to draw crowds, producers have become leery of hiring her and film offers have dried up, due to her reputation for unreliability and being difficult. Clearly, what is keeping her going is her devotion to her children, with whom she is close. As much as she loves them and tries to make their childhoods fun while masking her financial distress, it is impossible. Forced to leave them with ex-husband Sid Luft (Rufus Sewell), Judy takes a job in London, playing an exclusive club called Talk of the Town.

In London, she is treated like a star once again and plays to sell-out crowds, but it is clear her demons still haunt her, particularly alcohol and insecurity. The club’s owner Bernard Delfont (Michael Gambon) has assigned a minder/assistant, Rosalyn (Jessie Buckley), to keep an eye on the star and make sure she gets on stage on time.

Garland has her troubles with that, but things start to look up, offering a ray of hope for her to restart her life and hold on to her children, her biggest priority. The young woman assigned as her minder/assistant, played winningly by the talented Jessie Buckley, also becomes a friend. There is also a touch of romance, with her budding relationship with a young producer, Mickey Deans (a charming Finn Wittrock), who would become her fifth husband. Judy met Deans at a party at the home of her older daughter Liza Minnelli’s (Gemma-Leah Devereux) shortly before she left, and she is charmed when he turns up in London.

The film is based on Garland’s actual life but this is not a documentary and some dramatic license has been taken. The bulk of the film takes place in London, during Garland’s several week run at the popular Talk of the Town nightclub. This gives the film plenty of performance sequences to help evoke her magic as a singer and star.

While JUDY takes a sympathetic approach to Garland, it does shy away from her self-destructive ways. Still it does offer some explanation for Garland’s addictions and insecurities through flashbacks to Judy’s earlier years at MGM, during the filming of THE WIZARD OF OZ. Darci Shaw plays the young Judy, bullied by the studio about her weight and her looks. The teenagers put on an endless round of pills, some to help her lose weight or pep her up to keep up her grueling film and publicity schedule, and others to help her sleep. These flashbacks are sprinkled throughout the film, and the ones with studio head Louis B. Mayer (a creepy Richard Cordery) are particularly chilling, as he browbeats the teenager about her background as a vaudeville performer from the Midwest. He offers her a choice: do everything he asks and become a star, or choose to be a normal teenager but live out life in obscurity. The fear he instills continues to haunt the grown Judy.

Although Zellweger has little actual resemblance to Garland, she is transformed by excellent make up and her stunning performance, creating so convincing an impersonation that one feels like you are watching Judy Garland herself. Zellweger is superb, capturing Garland’s mannerism, tone of voice and pattern of speech, and movements with uncanny accuracy. In the dramatic sequences, her portrayal grabs at our heartstrings and threatens to tear our hearts out at times, so moving is this tale of a great star brought down by times and her own weaknesses. But the film is filled with moments of joy and triumph over those difficulties, as well as warm human connections, where Garland’s charm and appeal. Among these moments is a sequence with a couple of gay fans she meets by chance after a show, a warm interlude that connects her directly with a fan base who has long embraced her.

The stage show sequences are marvelous, with Zellweger channeling Garland to an amazing degree. Zellweger has sung in films before and does her own singing here. However, if there is a shortcoming it is that as nice as Zellweger’s voice is, she does not particularly sound like Garland even if she looks like her. One might wish the film had used Garland’s own distinctive voice. Even though her voice was fading at the time the film takes place, it still had a unique sound. The troubled star’s devotion to her children is one of the film’s most touching aspects, and one of ways this flawed star wins our hearts. Zellweger effectively conveys all Garland’s complicated layers, while also underlining the fickle nature of fame and a toxic system that chews up talent. Zellweger herself has had some rough treatment by media and the public, which might add a little depth to her performance.

JUDY is a film for Judy Garland fans, with a moving portrait of Judy Garland in her twilight, with all the heartbreak that entails, and a remarkable channeling of the legend by Renee Zellweger. It is not a perfect film but one that delivers for those fans. JUDY opens Friday, September 27.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars