Review by Miranda Barnewall
Are stars who endured difficult lives and experienced tragic deaths doomed to have their life’s artistic work overshadowed by them? One might say that they cannot escape the events of their personal lives, that they are inextricably linked to their professional lives. As for myself, I don’t buy that. If people want to make the argument that there is separation between the artist’s personal life and their creative work for the case of such “problematic” filmmakers like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, then why not make the argument for artists who endured struggles in their personal lives? Why put the artist through more exploitation once they’re passed on when today’s filmmakers have the power to shape their story for a new audience? The artist in question here is Judy Garland, and what I’m contemplating is the portrayal of Judy Garland (played by Renee Zellweger) in newly-released biopic Judy.
The script is based on the stage play End of the Rainbow written by Peter Quilter. Judy focuses on Judy’s life about six months before her death during her five week engagement at the London club The Talk of the Town. Employed intermittently (though unevenly) are flashbacks to Garland’s career at MGM circa The Wizard of OZ. The bridge between the past and the present is Garland’s drug addiction, which started during her years at MGM. Her addiction and lack of financial security to prove a stable home for her kids, Joey and Lorna, force Garland to take the gig in London and away from her kids.
The decision to adapt End of the Rainbow, focusing on a sliver of her career, rather than something like the Judy Garland biography Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland, a cumulative examination of her life, is misleading of Garland’s person and career. Limiting the time frame to her last year of life skews unfavorably to who Garland and who she was. The flashbacks to Garland’s years at MGM limit her recognition to The Wizard of OZ and her movies with Mickey Rooney. If this film was realistic about Garland’s star power, A Star is Born and Judgement at Nuremberg would have been mentioned.
Biopics are invasive by nature, putting a public person’s life on a large screen playing out in front of an audience and altered by the director, script writer, and actor’s interpretation of the person. The direction was a bit awkward at times, such as the continuous long shots of Garland singing on stage. However, what I could not tolerate were the all-too-often close-ups of Judy’s face, whether it be in the taxi attempting to find a place to stay the night or on stage drunk and encountering a particularly nasty audience. Invading and interpreting someone’s life is one thing, but getting right up and close during extremely vulnerable moments is an infuriating formal choice. Further insulting is the use of Renee Zellweger’s voice instead of Judy’s. Zellweger’s voice is fine, but that’s it: just fine. It seems crucial for the audience to hear the magnetism in Garland’s voice to comprehend Judy’s power. Judy should have taken the path other biopics of famous musicians did, such as Sweet Dreams, by using actual recordings of Judy’s performances.
About halfway through the movie there is a scene where Garland is interviewed live by a British talk show host. The interviewer asks her about her years at MGM, Louis B. Mayer, and the overwork she endured. The host segues into intrusive questions about her personal life, the custody battle with her ex-husband Sid Luft and being an absent mother by being away from her kids. This movie is perpetuating the exact thing it is trying to condemn: contemporary audiences are sitting in a plush cushioned theater watching a reenactment of this interview. There is a difference in being empathetic and pitying the subject. Judy takes the position of pity, as seen in the flashback sequences of Judy being forced to take pills and rebelling against the studio system.
Quite honestly, I’m not quite sure what this movie is aiming to accomplish other than putting these vulnerable moments on-screen to get Renee Zellweger an Oscar nod. This is not a diss on Zellweger; I’m a huge fan of Down With Love (all hail our Queen Barbara Novak), I quite enjoyed Bridget Jones Diary, and it’s clear that Zellweger took seriously studying Judy’s mannerisms. But other than that, this is simply an exposé into her last months of life. There needs to be more responsibility in taking up projects like this. Judy Garland was a true force and exceptionally talented artist. She persevered during the difficult periods in her life to make the legendary work that she left the world today. Not only do you owe Garland that respect, but also to those who keep her memory alive.
Judy Garland holds a special place in my heart. I discovered both her music and films early in my high school years; she was a singer & actress that I felt was truly mine, mainly because my fellow classmates found “old” songs and movies boring. While I was not a fan of the film, but I will say the next day as I was cooking lunch, I listened to songs by Judy Garland. As I stood there cooking, I belted my heart out to the songs that I fell in love with as a ninth grader, thinking of the bubbling enthusiasm that comes across when seeing on-screen.
To know Judy is to seek out her films, her recordings, and read biographies on her. It’s an active search, and while there were no doubt tragic elements of her life, that’s not why her fans stick around. It’s in those where you find aspects about her that you love and begin to know her, not just the dolled up tragic melodramatic bits cut together in a feature length film. Maybe the worries about biopics are not as high as they used to be pre-internet. For instance, take this companion piece made by Be Kind Rewind; viewers of Judy who research about Judy Garland after seeing the film are likely to come across videos like this.
If you are not familiar with Judy Garland, I recommend you bypass this movie and watch some of her movies: classics like A Star is Born and Meet Me in St. Louis, some of my personal favorites like The Clock and Presenting Lily Mars, or a few clips of her TV show on YouTube. If you are set on seeing a biopic on her, the TV miniseries Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows examines her entire life, rather than a small slice of it.