Judy (2019)
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Judy Movie Review
Judy is a 2019 biopic directed by Rupert Goold and starring Renee Zellweger. It’s such a moving and insightful, but ultimately clichéd biographical picture.
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“I just want what everybody wants.
I seem to have a harder time getting it“
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Thirty years after starring in ‘The Wizard of Oz’, beloved actress and singer Judy Garland arrives in London to perform sold-out shows at a nightclub. While there, she reminisces with friends and fans and begins a whirlwind romance with musician Mickey Deans, her soon-to-be fifth husband.
So obviously, like most biopics these days, this is yet another one that focuses on just one chapter in a person’s life without ever touching on the rest of their life. There are flashbacks, though, and they are very clunky here. They provide an insight into how this famous movie was made and a dark story behind it, but still the cartoony villain type characters and an overall repetitive nature really hurt them in the long run.
The whole film is a bit repetitive as we follow Judy’s descending life, but because I did not know much about her life, to me it felt insightful and I learned a lot because it’s very historically accurate for the most part which I appreciated. It offers a heartbreaking look into her drug addiction, her failed marriages and her restrictions to visit her kids. In particular, her passion for performing and her exhaustion from it was so well handled and the highlight of the movie.
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They added two fictional scenes here, and both are incredibly obvious. One involves an older gay couple and overall that dinner scene was sweet and fine, though a bit too emotional. But the finale is totally made up of course, and simply the audience singing Over the Rainbow to Judy felt very emotionally manipulative and overly triumphant in typically Hollywood fashion.
So the gay couple got the worst scenes, but the two of them are memorable, and their obsession with her is very endearing and funny. I also liked Rosalyn and the relationship between these two women. Finn Wittrock of the American Horror Story fame plays her final husband, and I did not recognize him, but he once again gave a very good, memorable performance.
But let’s talk about Renee Zellweger who is obviously the main reason to see this picture as she carries the entire film on her shoulders, a film which literally has her in every scene. Though a bit too calculated at times and an obvious Oscar-bait of a role, especially in the transformation of her looks and voice, Renee still delivered in spades, and she deserves an Oscar nomination, and maybe even a win for her strong work here. She was excellent in Judy’s mannerisms, and especially in all emotional sequences where she killed it. I wanted a bit more humor from the character having in mind that Judy Garland was quite funny, but overall this was a very powerful portrayal of the famous actress.
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Judy is weakly directed by Rupert Goold, and very badly paced. Yes, the third act is great and it ended on a sappy, but memorably positive note, and the first act is also very good, but the second act lagged a lot. In particular, many scenes were overdrawn and simply repetitive, leading to a lesser engagement of the movie for me. But still, it’s better than I expected it would be, and it offers a very tragic journey, and a fine history lesson on old Hollywood.
Judy has a very sappy ending, and it drags a lot owing to slower pace throughout and a repetitive structure to it. It’s a standard biopic for sure, but it still offers an insightful, mostly very historically accurate look into the final chapter of Judy Garland’s life with some very touching moments. It needs to be seen for Renee Zellweger whose performance in the titular role is meticulous and quite powerful.
