Roadside Attractions
Judy Garland is having quite a renaissance. It’s been fifty years since she died and there were many remembrances, tributes, and celebrations of her life during Gay Pride and World Pride this year. There have been numerous nightclub and cabaret shows centered around her contribution to the world of music. Her daughter, Lorna Luft, released a book about the making of the film A Star is Born in 2018 and her daughter, Liza Minnelli, had an auction of her personal and professional belongings in 2018. Judy Garland will never be forgotten, she will never not be beloved, and she will never cease to be relevant.
Perhaps this was the right time for someone to do a big-screen biography film about the legend, one of the few legends we have who truly deserves the moniker. She has been represented on television in two movies, one about her youth and The Wizard of Oz (Rainbow) and one that covered her entire life (Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows) but, until now, the story of Ms. Garland’s life has evaded the scrutiny of the major motion picture screens. It was bound to happen some day.
And it is happening in a big way now.
For months people have been discussing the film Judy, mostly from two camps: those excited that Academy Award winner Renée Zellweger was playing the world’s greatest entertainer, and those mortified that their idol was being played by Bridget Jones. When the first photos were released people were either amazed at the resemblance or disgusted by the audacity. As the trailers came out, people were either thrilled by the snippets they were seeing of Ms. Zellweger’s interpretation, or filled with umbrage over the lack of Judy Garland’s real voice during the singing segments. Now that the film is open, everyone has an opinion and they are shouting them, not from rooftops, as the saying goes, but from every social media and internet platform on which they can place their attention-seeking hands. So with all that hubbub and brouhaha out there, what’s a girl to do? I’ll tell you what to do.
Go see the movie for yourself and make up your own mind.
Do not listen to other people regarding the movie Judy. Judge the film for yourself. I have an opinion, too, and I’m going to share it — but less of what is written here will be about my opinion of Judy and more about the art of letting go and enjoying a piece of art. People who don’t know about Judy Garland (is there such a thing? Really?) will probably not be interested in this movie. If anyone goes to see this movie and doesn’t know who Judy Garland is, walking in the door, they are probably going to see Renée Zellweger, and if that is the case, they are going to be happy because Ms. Zellweger is giving a career-best performance, in a career filled with highlights ranging from Empire Records to Chicago, from Jerry Maguire to Cinderella Man. Fans of Zellweger will not be disappointed. People going to the movie out of morbid curiosity will either go home happy they went, or angry at the experience, depending on what their true motive is – either to see an illuminating piece of storytelling, or to be made angry by it (people looking to be made angry will always be made angry), and in either case it’s a win because those people will get exactly what they want. And then there are the Judy Garland fans. Some will love it because it is exciting to see her brought back to life. It is important to see her legacy carried on and, thanks to this movie, Judy Garland will be more spoken of, more remembered, more front and center than she has been in a long time, which is saying a lot because nobody has ever stopped talking about her. The others will hate it with every fiber of their being. Because they want to. Because they decided to before they walked in the door.
Everyone will get out of Judy exactly what they want.
So decide, now, what you want.
For the record, this writer is a die-hard Judy Garland fan who thought the movie Rainbow was okay and who thought the movie Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows was a masterpiece (even if Judy Davis came into the story too early and Tammy Blanchard should have played the Meet Me In St. Louis scenes). For the record, this writer read his first Judy Garland biography at the age of 13 (Gerold Frank’s ‘Judy’), and has a full collection of books on Garland, including Ms. Luft’s and all of Judy expert John Fricke’s books.
I loved the movie Judy.
Is the film perfect? No. Few movies are. But it is a very good film, well written and well directed, art directed within an inch of its life, accurately costumed and beautifully acted by all.
There are times when it feels a little like a made for TV movie, but that can happen with a lot of movies. Remember Losing Isaiah? Lifetime movie. Or Deep End of the Ocean? ABC Movie of the Week. Immediate Family? Early HBO. It happens, especially today when the lines between films made for the big and little screens can become so grey and blurred. In spite of little incohesive moments and edits that could have been made smoother, the story being told here is one told with purpose and meaning. The problem for most people is going to be that it’s a sad story. This need surprise no one. Anybody who knows about Judy Garland knows that her life was difficult. We’ve all heard the stories of how LB Mayer monstrously abused her verbally and emotionally and how the studio got her hooked on drugs. Everyone has heard about the divorces, the drinking, the drama. You can hardly throw a rock in the entertainment community without hitting someone who has a story about Judy Garland’s last drunken days. The stories are the stuff of legend. So, why they chose to do a movie about THIS particular time in Ms. Garland’s life is the big mystery, and the only reason I can think of is Renée Zellweger, who is the right age, the right physical type and the right talent to tell the story.
Well … there is ONE other reason they might have chosen this time in Judy’s life to memorialize: happy stories are less interesting than sad ones.
My Week With Marilyn is about a tumultuous time Monroe had making a film in England. Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is about the last days of a terminally ill Gloria Graham. What’s happy in Mommie Dearest? And do we even have to discuss Frances? Unhappy, depressing, sad, traumatic movie star movies make for better storytelling. Judy is an unhappy movie. That isn’t to say there aren’t moments of lightness and humor in the film. It is clear that Ms. Garland had a sense of humor, a sense of whimsy. It is made obvious that she was devoted to her children. So it isn’t all doom and gloom. The romance with Micky Deans brings some joy to the story and the musical numbers are exciting to watch, and even though the crimes committed against Judy Garland by other people are infuriating and sad, there is hope inside of this Judy, even though everyone knows the outcome of the story.
The cast of Judy is doing exemplary work, guided by director Rupert Goold, using a script by Tom Edge based on Peter Quilter’s play The End of The Rainbow. I saw The End of The Rainbow. It was depressing. So if Judy is depressing, it’s because the story all starts with the script, and this is the story Quilters wanted to tell; and this does seem to be a time in Garland’s life that fascinates people, because this writer saw a play called The Property Known as Garland which starred Adrienne Barbeau that was about the infamous Scandinavia concerts Garland did before her death. And even though this cast, most notably Finn Witrock and Jessie Buckley, are doing their jobs well, the sole responsibility of the film’s power lies in the hands of Zellweger, who treats the job and The Lady with respect and reverence.
Ms. Zellweger has made the wise choice of not mimicking Judy Garland. She does not attempt to change either her speaking or singing voice to match the timber of Garland’s. Instead, Zellweger goes to live in Garland’s house and decorates it her way. She uses Garland’s speech patterns, her singing styles, her physical mannerisms and she embodies Judy Garland, indeed, becomes Judy Garland. It is uncanny how, without prosthetics, without lip-synching, with no gimmickry, Renee Zellweger presents a proper Judy Garland. No lip-synching at all. According to reports, Ms. Zellweger sang all the musical numbers live, and though her voice does not sound exactly like Garland’s, the inflections, the emotion, the passion and the heart are all there. The entire performance is heart, created by knowledgeable and reverent craftsmanship, the kind audiences have come to expect from Zellweger, one of the few actors around willing to take a risk like playing the world’s most beloved entertainer, singing her songs, and singing them live. Now THAT’S chutzpah. More importantly, though, it’s smart. Judy Garland was a musical monologist. Each song she sang was a story being told in the moment. In order for Ms. Zellweger to do that artist justice, she had to be able to perform every song as a monologue, in the moment, in the emotional pocket, reacting spontaneously to what she was feeling – and you just can’t do that lip-synching to a recording. She HAD to do the numbers live.
People going to see Judy with the hopes of seeing the real Judy Garland represented on the screen will be disappointed. This isn’t Judy Garland. This is a representation of her, a story being told by Misters Quilters, Edge and Goold, and Miss Zellweger. There are two magic words in show business that allow some leeway when it comes to telling a fictionalized account of a famous person’s life, and those words are “Based on”. The artists have taken a well documented time in Ms. Garland’s life and reformatted it for maximum storytelling effect. Nobody believes that the film Amadeus is accurate – it doesn’t lessen our enjoyment of the movie. The makers of the movie Dragon have admitted that much of the film is fiction and that Bruce Lee did not break his back in a fight, but hurt his sacral nerve while lifting weight … the movie is still a great one. There are moments in Judy, bits of dialogue, storylines that are, surely, fictionalized. So what? There is a form to telling cinematic stories and the storytellers have to tell the stories in the ways that they best see fit. And at the end of the day, the sixty-four thousand dollar question is this: did the storytellers do their job, tell a good story and tell it well?
When it comes to the movie Judy the answer is absolutely yes.
Judy has a run time of 1 hour 58 minutes and is rated PG-13 for substance abuse, thematic content, some strong language, and smoking.
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