Judy Review: Renee Zellweger shines like Garland. The film, not so much.

Renee Zellweger is better than Judy No better than Judy Garland; better than the movie about Garland in which she plays. His performance is like watching and thinking, "Oh, that's what they mean by" worthy of being rewarded. "

We knew that Zellweger could sing and dance; one of his three Oscar nominations is for playing Roxie Hart in Chicago. But get into the role of a legend like Judy Garland – and not up to Garland's celebrity, but six months before his death, 30 years later The Wizard of Oz – is the kind of challenge that actors spend all their life hoping for.

Garland was only 47 when she died in 1969, but a lifetime of addiction made her seem much older. Zellweger (who is 50 years old) plays her like a shattered, nervous, powerful and frail singer, the kind of performer you get upset about watching because she can give the best concert you've ever seen or break down completely on scene. His skin looks like wax too thin, tracers for the eyes drawn, hair spiky and black; she falls when she is alone and then comes back to life when there is a crowd or a kindness. She – Garland, Zellweger-as-Garland – is fascinating.

But Judy is a little difficult to handle, although you can see what it gives. Based on Peter Quilter's 2005 play End of the rainbowIt focuses on a series of concerts that Garland gave in London from the winter of 1968. To help explain Garland's behavior, the London scenes are interspersed with a glimpse of Judy's youth ( under the direction of Darci Shaw) under contract with MGM, where his life is fully controlled by studio director Louis B. Mayer. Over there, Judy mocks and bends alternately under the studio's restrictions, which limit what she can eat, with whom she can hang out with, and when her 16-year-old party can take place (two months earlier because this is the only gap in his schedule).

The narrative of Garland's youth film is consistent with some historical stories, including the implication that Mayer inappropriately touched her. It's in the film a sort of enhanced melodrama, with rich colors and emotional touches, intended to evoke the era in which it happened. But unlike the realism of the scenes of 1969, the flashbacks are forced, which attenuates their effect (although there is something to say about the flashbacks in the memory of Garland, which can be filtered only by a filter of type movie).

David Hindley / LD Entertainment and roadside attractions

Nevertheless, the 1968 story is less stylized and more heartbreaking. Garland is broke, she is homeless and on the verge of losing custody of her two youngest children to the benefit of her ex-husband (played by Rufus Sewell) when she is convinced to go to London for a series of shows that could help her earn enough to keep watch. There, she is greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of fans but struggles for concert dates, due to addiction and insomnia.

There are touching moments of connection, especially when Garland ends up eating eggs from a homosexual couple for whom she wanted everything, especially in very difficult moments. But the experience of watching Judy is especially nerve-racking. Will she be here tonight? Will she be able to get through the whole thing? It's an imaginable experience, not much different from what his biggest fans could have had at these concerts in London.

So, his failures hurt his gaze and his triumphs are a joy to behold. But even while painting this portrait of legend, with a beautiful performance in its center, Judy does not come to understand the story that he tells.

Judy does not quite understand what it's all about

Judy is especially a pleasure, even in its most tense moments, especially because Zellweger interprets several whole numbers (including "Over the Rainbow") that give you an idea of ​​the magic that Garland brought to the scene.

But it's finally a tragedy – a story about how the Hollywood system took a vulnerable girl, made her a star, and finally broke her. We see Judy being given pills as a teenager to help her sleep and carry out her work. We see it essentially forced to develop a disabling eating disorder and an even more disabling sense of self, which requires constant validation from strangers and men to feel seen – even if it is, as one person puts it , "The greatest artist in the world". The Hollywood system changed between being a Dorothy child and being around 40 years old and getting fired from her home for not paying rent. But that did not change all that a lot.

That's why Judy can leave you a little uncomfortable at the end. I know it did it for me. Hollywood has a love story with its own mythology – movies about the industry (from L & # 39; artist at Argo at La La Land) often skyrocket up hope lists at the Oscars. The industry knows better romance and often rewards the movies that do it.

David Hindley / LD Entertainment and roadside attractions

For most Judy, the film seemed to be an extremely rare specimen: a show business movie that seems both designed for the awards season and a critique of what the Hollywood machine can do when it goes into gear. And given the recent revelations about how the most powerful Hollywood can abuse and exploit vulnerable people, especially women, that self-awareness seemed right. We can not deny how important artists like Garland have been in millions of lives, we should not do it either. But we should not let that turn a blind eye to how the industry has torn people apart.

The end of Judy feels that this is an easy way out by romanticizing Garland's dependence on the public. A title card after the last scene indicates that Garland died just six months after his last concert in London. But there is another, with a quote from L. Frank Baum's novel The Wizard of Oz, this is apparently intended to summarize the film: "A heart is not judged how much you love; but how much you are loved by others. "

Sure. And yet, what Judy is pretty much not a woman who is, for the most part, loved by others. This is a woman who has been transformed into an image or facade that could to be loved by others. She is loved but mostly by people who know her only by seeing her on the screen or reading stories controlled by publicists. (This is perhaps even more ironic given that Zellweger was very enthusiastic in interviews about how she experienced many identical things and completely disappeared from Hollywood for six years in order to find herself again. )

Judy knows it's her story, that's what Hollywood did to her. She talks about it to the interviewer during the movie as well. But it is discouraging that the film could not make an extra leap by being at least a little self-critical of its own industry. In a movie that tries to attack the woman behind the screen star, it's sad to see the last word receive its own message so badly.

I guess it's show business for you.

Judy opens on September 27 th.