Judy (2019, PG-13)

Glad I got the chance to see this one. It was the only Leading Actress nominee I still hadn’t seen, and by all accounts, Renée Zellweger is probably going to win on Oscar night. I try not to immediately fall over myself in praise of actors doing impeccable impressions of real-life people – yes, it’s impressive, but it’s not the be-all end-all of acting – but I can’t say this isn’t a hell of a performance, both in how Zellweger captures Judy Garland and how she plays the emotion of the piece.

In the last year of her life, desperate to pay off her debts and get a house so she can provide a stable home for her children, Judy Garland takes an extended gig playing London’s The Talk of the Town for five weeks. Management attempts to wrangle the troubled star and ensure she makes it onstage night after night as she wrestles with addiction and declining health.

Before I get too far into it, I recognize that this movie isn’t as good as it wants to be. It’s very much an Oscar-bait film, with a script full of scenery-chewing “For Your Consideration” scenes for Zellweger to play, but at the same time, the overall story drags in places. The beginning is particularly slow, and like Rocketman, I feel it struggles at times with the flow of the narrative, becoming a succession of events rather than depicting a meaningful rise and fall of action.

But even though the film she’s in could be better, Zellweger is undeniably exquisite as Judy. I think the particular period in which it’s set, with Garland’s health issues and addictions catching up with her, helps Zellweger get away with the singing. Not that she’s not good, because she really does do an impressive job with it, but because asking anybody to sing like Judy Garland in her prime would be an overly-tall order. Throughout the film, Zellweger maintains Judy’s sense of anxious desperation, almost an equal mix of a tormented woman falling apart before your eyes and a ragged performer pasting on the falsest of smiles because she’s determined not to show you the cracks. (Her hair and makeup is also top-notch, earning the film its other Oscar nod.)

Zellweger is the best thing about the movie, but she’s not the only one. When the film is on, it’s really on. The flashbacks of young Judy, showing the abuse and exploitation she suffered on the set of The Wizard of Oz, are heartbreakingly well-made. I also really like an interlude involving a couple of devoted superfans, and the ending is beautiful. You see signs of what could’ve been a really wonderful film, if the rest of it matched up to the quality of scenes like that.

The film additionally features Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon, and Bella Ramsey (Lyanna Mormont!) in small roles, along with Finn Wittrock (who I always recognize from The Big Short.) I also really like Jessie Buckley, who plays the woman tasked with “looking after” Judy i.e., powering through however Judy is currently imploding to get her to make her call time. Her character, Rosalyn, has an interesting dynamic with Judy, and I wound up feeling for both of them.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements (including eating disorders and child abuse,) drinking/smoking/drug use, and suggestiveness.

The Book of Rannells: Girls: Season 6, Episode 2 – “Hostage Situation” (2017)

A bit of an odd episode, but I like it quite a bit.  While it shows plenty of the characters at their worst, it also finds some of them ultimately taking steps to try and improve their lives (relationship spoilers.)

Hannah is heading off on another trip, this time a weekend in Poughkeepsie.  Rather than for work, though, it’s to very reluctantly help Marnie in a lie:  Marnie’s been seeing Desi again behind Ray’s back, and “going upstate with Hannah” is her cover.  The three of them head out together, and the weekend getaway quickly goes off the rails in a surprising way.  Meanwhile, Shoshanna ropes Elijah into coming with her to a professional women’s event hosted by two of her former friends from college, and things get tense when Jessa invites herself along.

Some of Desi’s whole thing goes over the top, but I like a fair amount of his nonsense, like his weird “Where’s Waldo?”-esque outfit, significantly quoting Simon & Garfunkel, and Hannah’s description, “He’s like someone from the Pacific Northwest knit a man.”  More importantly, this plot has some good stuff for Hannah and Marnie.  The events of the episode force Marnie to take a hard look at herself and her choices, and Hannah offers some supportive tough love with a dash of her own self-reflection.  Considering where both of them begin at the start of the episode, they come out pretty well.

I enjoy the Shoshanna plot, too.  This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Shoshanna start to get over Jessa, but this is probably the most serious she’s been about it.  Seeing her old friends and where they are now makes her think about professional opportunities she lost out on because she was following Jessa around, and while she does admittedly attempt to shift blame by putting it all on Jessa’s bad influence, Shoshanna seems to get that it’s ultimately up to her to decide which influences to nurture in her life.

I’m pretty sure this is the first time Elijah has ever shared a plot with Shoshanna and Jessa – they’ve certainly been in group plots together, but I think this is the first time it’s been just the three of them together onscreen.  Shoshanna and Jessa obviously have a lot of history and a specific dynamic together that’s changed over the seasons, and Elijah makes an interesting addition to that.  His imitation of Shoshanna calling to beg for his help/moral support at this event is hilarious, and it won’t surprise you much to learn that, even though he’s there, he doesn’t offer much of either.  Instead, he mostly provides great reaction shots and makes his own fun; he has an awesome unspoken exchange with a waiter before leaving Shoshanna and Jessa to their drama.

Despite being next to no help, however, Elijah is adamant about his intention to help, especially in comparison to Jessa.  This might also be the first time we’ve seen Elijah interact with Jessa since she got together with Adam, and in light of his obvious allegiance to Hannah, he’s not prepared to cut Jessa any slack.  I appreciate that Elijah isn’t in this plot solely to give him something to do and to add more humor to the Shoshanna-Jessa story – when you add the dimension of Jessa/Adam, it gives him more of a personal investment in the plotline, and quite a bit of dirty laundry gets aired between these three.  I especially like how immediately Elijah goes on the defensive when Jessa tells him to grow up.  It’s a subtle thing, but, as with his reaction in the last episode to Marnie suggesting he take an acting class, it’s a small reminder that the stuff from the end of last season is still on his mind; this is a sore subject for him, although none of the other characters seem particularly aware of that.

Besides this plot, we also get a fun scene between Elijah and Hannah near the start of the episode.  As she prepares for her trip with Marnie and Desi, Elijah critiques her secret-keeping skills, they once again demonstrate the weird level of their closeness, and the scene ends on a hilarious sight gag that retroactively puts the whole thing in a new perspective.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019, R)

I debated seeing this one. I generally like Quentin Tarantino’s movies and I like most of the actors in it, but the Bruce Lee stuff from the trailers, and the subsequent discourse about it after the movie came out, turned me off. While I, for the most part, like the rest of the film, “that scene” is every bit as uncomfortable as I heard it was (more on that later.) Premise spoilers.

Fading star Rick Dalton is anxious to keep his profile up in 1960s Hollywood. He’s been downgraded from starring in movies to starring in TV shows to, now, guest-starring in other people’s TV shows. While Rick tries to decide whether he should keep wrestling with Hollywood or take an offer to make spaghetti westerns in Italy, his stunt man/driver/handy-man Cliff gets tangled up in more than he bargained for when he meets a beautiful young hippie in need of a ride.

The second half of that summary doesn’t quite capture things. If you know anything about the movie, you know it also involves Sharon Tate and Charles Manson, but the different parts of the story don’t slide together very well. Although both sides of the film are compelling, they feel like two different movies for the most part, and even using the Manson cult as connective tissue between them, their relevance to one another feels negligible. For me personally, I think I would’ve rather seen a movie about Rick and Cliff or a movie about Sharon Tate, not both in the same story, at least as it is.

But again, looking at each part of the story separately, it’s all very well done. Rick’s fears of falling out of relevance are familiar to any story about a Hollywood star who’s not as famous as they used to be (hello, BoJack Horseman!), but it’s still crafted superbly. The scenes of him acting, desperately trying to hold it together and not blow whatever opportunities he can scrape by, are especially good. I also really like the sprinkling of scenes involving Sharon Tate, particularly the scenes of her watching herself in a movie. Meanwhile, Cliff’s scenes at Spahn’s Movie Ranch maintain a great sense of atmosphere and eeriness.

Of course, there are plenty of familiar faces in the cast. In small roles, we get Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Al Pacino, Emile Hirsch, the late Luke Perry, and Lena Dunham, plus Maya Hawke (less big-name, but I really enjoyed her as Robin on the latest season of Stranger Things.) Really, though, the movie belongs to Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as Rick and Cliff, and small sections of it belong to Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate. If I was going to pick a standout of the three, I’d probably go with Robbie. Even though the role isn’t very big and doesn’t demand that much of her, she plays it with so much spirit and warmth that I couldn’t help but be drawn in by it.

This one wracked up quite a few nominations. Best Picture, Director and Original Screenplay (both for Tarantino,) Best Supporting Actor for Brad Pitt, Cinematography, Costume and Production Design, and Sound Editing and Mixing, 10 in all. I have to say, having seen the film, I’m a little disappointed that Brad Pitt seems to be the designated frontrunner for his race. Not because I don’t like Brad Pitt – I’ve liked him for a long time – or because he isn’t good here, because he is. But like with Robbie and Sharon Tate, it feels like a part that doesn’t ask much from him, and I probably wouldn’t have taken special notice of his performance if I hadn’t already known he was up for an Oscar.

Before I go, I have to bring up a few more things. Tarantino is one of those directors whose work it’s easier to like when you don’t know much about how he behaves, and Emile Hirsch, who has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance as Charles Manson, was convicted of violently assaulting a film executive at a party in 2015. And the Bruce Lee scene in this movie is so gross. I read a lot of the conversation around it when the movie came out, including the interview that Lee’s daughter gave on the subject, and seeing it in the movie is super uncomfortable to watch.

Warnings

Graphic violence, sexual references, drinking/smoking/drug use, and strong thematic elements.