Judy film review: A nuanced portrait of troubled Hollywood icon
This biopic of screen legend Judy Garland (Renee Zellweger) picks up its star in the late 1960s, and things aren’t going well. Her ex-husband wants custody of her two youngest children, she’s doing shows in grubby venues for $150, and getting kicked out of hotel suites when she can’t pay.
Desperate for cash, she agrees to a run of shows at London nightspot Talk of the Town. The problem is that her drinking habit makes her extremely unreliable – and thanks to a combination of uppers (which stop her from eating, but also sleeping) and downers (which should make her sleep, but just seem to leave her awake and miserable) which she has taken to lose weight since she was a teenager, Garland has had about half an hour’s kip in her entire life.
Some nights she gives a barnstorming performance, while others she stumbles out, picks fights with the audience and is replaced by Lonnie Donegan. Whichever it is, Zellweger plays Garland with the kind of nuance that will surely net her a Best Actress nomination.
None of the other characters are particularly interesting, but then upstaging the actress playing Judy Garland in a film about Judy Garland would be problematic, given she’s the consummate icon of all-singing, all-dancing old Hollywood starriness.
The feel-good love-in that concludes the film does a disservice to Garland and her legendary but deeply troubled life, which ended by way of a barbiturate overdose shortly after the London shows. But don’t let that put you off: Zellweger’s compelling, heartbreaking performance in the first 116 minutes makes it worth cringing through the last two.