This adoring portrait of Judy Garland, starring Renée Zellweger, is hagiography with a twist.
Judy, age 46, is past her prime. That’s what she’s been told and what she mostly believes. A single mother in LA, she’s drowning in bills, pills and booze. To make ends meet, she leaves her children with their father (Rufus Sewell) and signs up for a series of shows in a London nightclub. The boss of Talk of the Town (Michael Gambon) eyes her warily as does his assistant (Jessie Buckley). They can see she’s a casualty. Will they be able to patch her up so the show can go on? Zellweger is saddled with a prosthetic nose and false teeth, but has never looked less encumbered. She has always been brilliant but dropped out of view in 2009, only to reappear six years later. Now we’re witnessing a true Renée-sance. An Oscar would not go amiss.
She’s at her very best at the mic. And that’s her own voice (averagely powerful; above-averagely expressive) that you can hear. Actors don’t need to be gifted singers. Marion Cotillard and Rami Malek lip-synching their way through La Vie en Rose and Bohemian Rhapsody were utterly involving. But there’s something special about the atmosphere when Zellweger lets rip. She crushes By Myself (shot in one merciless take) wearing the dazed expression of someone gripping onto a magic carpet that hasn’t soared for years.
She’s just as watchable on the bad nights. The ones where Judy, pissed as a rat and riled by nasty crowds, drops the classy dame act and belches spleen.
Inbetween the rollercoaster performances, scriptwriter Tom Edge gives our heroine lots of droll lines and the funniest scene takes place in the tiny flat owned by her super-fans, a gay couple, Dan and Stan (Andy Nyman, Daniel Cerqueira). As the trio discuss how to make an omelette, you half expect Bake Off’s Noel Fielding to skip into frame. What could have been horribly old-fashioned (Dan and Stan are as effeminate as characters from a Seventies sitcom) feels ultra-modern.
True, Judy can be unsubtle and schmaltzy. And most of the cast are underused, just there to make Zellweger look good.
Just concentrate on Judy’s emotional journey, though, and you’ll be fine.
Judy - In pictures
