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| BEING JULIA | |||||||||||
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Directed by Istvan Szabo (***) |
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| Written By: John H. Foote | |
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| From the red carpet to your computer screen, HNmag.com will be
bringing you up to the moment TIFF coverage. Celebrity interviews,
film reviews, and of course, our industry inside scoop will be posted
daily during the festival. Be sure to visit us right here at
www.hnmag.com so you don’t miss a single piece of the action.
Enjoy Responsibly Annette Bening dominates every frame of this film from beginning to end in a saucy performance that allows this fine actress to flex her considerable acting talents, delivering her finest performance since American Beauty (1999). Bening is among the great under appreciated actresses working in modern film, having first come to attention in Milos Forman's Valmont (1988) and The Grifters (1990). She earned an Oscar nomination for her fine performance in The Grifters (1990) as a cunning and nasty con woman. In American Beauty (1999) she was a revelation capturing the silent anguish of a woman who has lost sight of life itself, replacing it with a need for order and perfection. We see her quiet hysteria each time she steps on screen and she easily matched Kevin Spacey scene for scene in this Oscar winner which also launched at the Toronto International Film Festival. In Being Julia she is stage legend Julia Lambert, a vain actress approaching the age when great actresses become character actresses in supporting roles. Her fits of vanity are her way of reminding everyone around her, including herself that she is a great actress and will always be such. Into her life comes an admiring younger man who she takes as a lover, and who will betray her. Gather in her razor sharp claws, she launches and extracts a vicious revenge on all those who have had a part in humiliating her, and in a stage performance full of surprises and wild improvisation, Julia turns the table on everyone she has targeted including her husband, Michael (Jeremy Irons). Bening is a delight in the film, both charming and sexy, laughing an infectious laugh, but also vulnerable and wounded, and finally calculating and cruel to those who have dealt her cruelty. She lights up the screen throughout the film, giving it strength and grounding the work. There are fine supporting performances, but make no mistake this is very much a showcase for Bening, who recalls such performances as Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Bette Davis in All About Eve (1950). Jeremy Irons is fine and arrogant as her husband Michael, and Bruce Greenwood delivers some nice work as her friend, while Lucy Punch is grasping and fame seeking as an actress who crosses Julia's path, and Maury Chaykin, fine as a playwright who watches his words changed in front of his eyes. Szabo keeps the film moving at a brisk pace, moving for the first time in his career away from serious subject matter and obviously having a good time doing so. The picture looks beautiful, and Michael Danna's music is bouncy and light for the mood of the film. | |||||||||||
| © Copyright 2004 Hollywood North Magazine Inc. | |||||||||||
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