Judy

The Life That Got Away

Review by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they agree with me or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) if they choose to disagree.

                              Judy (Rupert Goold)   rated PG-13

“Executive Summary” (no spoilers):  Here’s a (surely somewhat) fictionalized look at the last months of famed singer/actor Judy Garland before she died on June 22, 1969, focusing on her massive financial troubles at the time which encouraged her to accept a late-1968, 5-week engagement at a huge London nightclub in order to raise enough cash to pay off her debts, provide a good home for her 2 young children, at that point living in L.A. with their father (one of Judy’s ex-husbands), Sid Luft.  In that all this info is public knowledge, there’s not much of significance I could reveal in spoiler mode anyway but I'll still offer my usual warnings in the detailed review below regarding the final events shown in this film in case you’d like to see it without knowing how individual situations work out on screen.  Generally the reviews have been quite strong for Judy, as has been the box-office-response since its debut last weekend, although it’s still in a small number of theaters so far, with my encouragement to be patient if it hasn’t come to a venue near you yet because with the (appropriate) Oscar-buzz for Renée Zellweger’s lead performance I predict a much-larger-rollout soon.  Be warned, though, about a couple of things: (1) If you’re a big fan of Garland but concentrate just on her films and recordings you may be off-put by her self-destructive behavior at this point in her life, leading to her demise due to an overdose (this film doesn’t pull any punches about how troubled, then nasty she could be at this late stage of her career); (2) If you want to actually listen to Garland singing, then put on a CD because it’s Zellweger’s voice you’ll get here (some critics complain mightily about this, most are less concerned), not bad at all just not classic Judy, although a video linked to my commentary below reveals the actual star wasn’t sounding all that much like her classic self either in her last public performance, so I commend Zellweger for her approach, even if it’s earned her some snide critiques.  This film presents a powerful combination of desperation and determination in its main character, packing an emotional wallop well worth your time, ticket-money, and appreciation, a huge step-up toward awards season.

Here’s the trailer:  (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate that same button on the full screen’s lower right or your “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but as this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film—or want to save some bucks—to help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters like this: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

               

What Happens: Because I’ve never read any detailed biographies of Judy Garland, I have no idea what fictional liberties are taken by the filmmakers here in exploring some of her last few months in late 1968, early 1969.  However, it’s definitely true that despite her decades of stardom by this time in her life Garland (Renée Zellweger) was faced with mounting financial difficulties to the point she had to agree to temporarily give her young kids, Lorna Luft (Bella Ramsey) and Joey Luft (Lewin Lloyd), to the care of their father, Judy’s latest ex-husband (third marriage for both of them), Hollywood wheeler-dealer Sid Luft (Rufus Sewell)—a little background research filled in details this film doesn’t bother with: Judy and Sid were married in 1952, the year of Lorna’s birth, then Joey came along in 1955, with his parents divorcing in 1965.  Opening events of this film eluded me just a bit because they feature Judy in a stage act with her children (which she actually did in July 1967, a 27-show-event at NYC’s Palace Theatre) then returning to her hotel late at night only to be informed their suite is no longer available, their belongings in storage, due to her long-unpaid-account, so they take cab rides to other hotels but the negative aspect of her reputation precedes her (“unreliable, uninsurable”) so there’s no room at any of the inns, leading them (as best I followed, while scribbling notes in the dark—damn, it would be nice sometimes to get access to detailed press kits) to Sid’s home (which, as best I followed is) in L.A.’s toney Brentwood district so the kids could have a proper place to sleep (I do know through Internet research she’d previously had to sell her Brentwood home due to IRS debts, yet whether Sid actually ended up with it or how Judy and her brood seemed to suddenly jump cross-country I have to confess I didn’t really follow).

 Concerned for his children’s welfare, along with their need to continue their education the next day, Sid makes a firm request for custody during the school year, an option Judy flatly rejects although she has little alternative at this point given her financial difficulties, choosing to not even stay at Sid’s place herself but instead is back in a cab again, heading off to a big party somewhere in L.A. to meet up with considerably-older-daughter Liza Minnelli (Gemma-Leah Devereux)—from Judy’s long-gone-marriage to famed director Vincent Minnelli (married 1945-‘51), Liza born in 1946.  Now that I’ve established Judy’s difficult situation (with some specific dates unclear to me from her real life, but in this version all of it appeared to be happening in mid-to-later-1968), let’s jump back to where the film actually begins, sometime in 1938 or early 1939 on the famous set of The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming,* 1939) where MGM boss Louis B. Mayer (Richard Cordery) is berating his teenage star (now played by Darci Shaw) because she’s not happy with her working conditions under the iron-will of Mayer and his underlings, including a woman who’s either Judy’s stern mother, Ethel Gumm (Natasha Powell), or a demanding Mayer minion (this article briefly explores this cruel aspect of Garland’s young life [directly reminding me of Elton John’s line about Marilyn Monroe from "Candle in the Wind"—on his 1973 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album—“They set you on the treadmill And they made you change your name” {different female star but sadly similar outcome}]).

*Given that Fleming was also occupied (as were other uncredited directors) with the mammoth production in 1939 of Gone with the Wind, I’ve learned …Oz producer Mervyn LeRoy did some uncredited directorial work on that fantasy classic, as well as learning famous dog Toto was actually Terry, the pet of LeRoy’s son, Warner (from his marriage to Doris Warner, daughter of Warner Bros.’ honcho, Jack Warner).  I got all this from my former Mills College student, Carolyn LeRoy, Warner’s daughter (she also told me she was raised in NYC’s Dakota Apartments where her younger brother was a playmate of Sean Lennon, son of a couple of other celebrities, John Lennon and Yoko Ono).

 In Judy’s actual opening scene, Mayer makes it clear to the girl who’d later become world famous as Dorothy Gale (whisked away from Kansas by a huge tornado) she’d better be thankful for her MGM contract, allowing her to gain fame in American movies rather than just living the boring life her female fans will face, simply becoming Midwestern housewives dreaming of being a star on the silver screen, which many of them might be better able to do than Judy because—as Mayer crudely tells her—she’s not all that pretty, her only distinguishing feature being her angelic singing voice.  He gives her the choice which will set Judy on the dual road to stardom/self-destruction of either resigning her contract, head back to obscurity as Frances Gumm (her real name), or accept his demands on how her career will be shaped, including a steady diet of amphetamines to keep her weight off (with no concern for the sleeplessness-side-effects, to be countered with necessary doses of barbiturates).  She chooses to stay in Oz, with other flashbacks throughout Judy showing how as years went on Garland continued to live her off-screen-life on uppers and downers—as well as keeping to a strict diet—despite a couple of rebellious acts such as actually chowing down on a hamburger during a photo shoot, jumping into an on-set tank of water during what was supposed to be her birthday celebration where, of course, she couldn’t eat any of her cake.  However, when a tough personal choice arose as she and equally-rising-star Mickey Rooney (actor unidentified, at least by IMDb or any review I’ve read) had finished a live stage performance somewhere she was invited by him to skip the encore, go off somewhere for dinner, yet she stayed for the curtain call, blinded by the spotlights of fame rather than pursuing what he’d hoped might be an off-screen-romance to match the one scripted by MGM for their several movies together.  These flashbacks are interspersed throughout Judy, but rather than stick to scene-by-scene-continuity I’ll finish this summary by going back to 1968, then to the end a few sad months later.  At that party where she meets up with Liza she declines to head off to another location with her adult daughter, instead sticks around, meets Mickey Deans (Finn Whitrock), a promoter of sorts, ends up at his apartment (lots of gin consumed, another daily ritual along with the tragic-years-long-addiction to pills), with implications of sex before she’s back to seeking solutions for her ongoing income problems.  Salvation arrives with an offer to perform for 5 weeks around the end-of-year-holidays at London’s huge Talk of the Town Theatre (with several balconies) which she begrudgingly accepts in order to earn enough cash to reduce her debts, revive her sagging career, reestablish a home with her kids.

(Just to be clear, that's Liza, not Judy, sharing this drastically color-unbalanced photo with Zellweger.)

 Once in London, though, she reverts to troublesome ways by refusing rehearsals, not sleeping, making life miserable for handler Rosalyn Wilder (Jessie Buckley), to the point of stage fright almost preventing Judy from the debut performance until she’s pushed out in front of the audience, finally building up confidence with “By Myself,” endearing her to the crowd, even though when we see her in private she looks half-dead; for that matter, her vocals aren’t overwhelming either, by turns energetic or soulful, yet not so melodic (extended discussion in this review’s next section as to whether that’s appropriate to Garland’s deteriorated-condition or Zellweger’s inadequacy as a singer).  A poignant scene starts after a show as she meets 2 members of her audience, a gay couple, Stan (Daniel Cerquira) and Dan (Andy Nyman), in awe of her; she agrees to go with them to dinner, they can’t find an open restaurant, she ends up at their flat where Stan nervously makes a (failed) omelet by adding cream, later falls asleep, while Dan sadly admits his horribly-repressed-life in a homophobic society, eliciting Judy’s deep empathy.  Her own life gets some uplift beyond the joy she’s now feeling so comfortably on stage when Mickey Deans suddenly appears, adding romance to her days (not decreasing her substance intake, though).  ⇒The pills and booze take their toll one night when she starts her show quite late—in an angry mood—gets abusive with a heckler, then spews full-blown obscenities.  Next day she apologizes to producer Bernard Delfont (Michael Gambon); he sends her to a doctor who diagnoses inflamed vocal chords and exhaustion, but she soldiers on, even marries Mickey—even though that didn’t happen until March 15, 1969 long after the London shows were done (this burst of happiness paralleled on stage with "For Once in My Life"—reminding me of Liza as Sally Bowles in Cabaret [Bob Fosse, 1972] singing "Maybe This Time," joyful about her romance with Brian Roberts [Michael York]); however, Judy’s joy soon goes sour again when Sid shows up, wants the kids permanently, confirmed in an restrained phone call from Judy to Lorna, so when she comes on drunk one night, falls down, tries to shake it off but the audience leaves in disgust, she’s replaced with local star Lonnie Donegan (John Dagleish).  Judy sneaks backstage, though, gets Lonnie to let her sing one number (”Come Rain or Come Shine”) which goes over very well,; however, when she then attempts “Over the Rainbow” she gets too choked up to finish so her gay friends (in the balcony) stand up and start singing it for her, with the rest of the crowd quickly joining in for a rousing ovation saluting Judy, yet 6 months later she’s dead (not shown, but she was found by Mickey, seemingly the victim of an accidental overdose but with never-fully-resolved-rumors of suicide or physical ailments; given the trauma such depictions of Judy’s problems still bring to actual Liza Minnelli she refuses to see Judy—or any other biography of her mother—although she does offer solid praise for Zellweger’s talent as an actor).⇐

So What? Due to a cluster of other commitments I again had time for only one screening this past week which probably wouldn’t have been Judy had I followed the advice of my local filmic-guru, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle (I’m sure many of you have such a definitive-reviewer-voice in your own communities, but with the scant feedback I get on my ramblings—except for the Google-monthly-total of worldwide unique visits to this site [growing again into the multi-thousands I’m proudly-appreciative to say] I can’t make any supportive/snarky comments on whose voice in your specific area you might be most influenced by), I might have passed this film up for something else, maybe a documentary about another famous vocalist where you actually get to hear her sing (Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice [Rob Epstein, Jeffery Friedman]); however, the encouragement of other, more supportive CCAL critiques (Rotten Tomatoes with 84 % positive reviews, Metacritic with their frequently-hesitant-average score of 65 % [more details on both in the Related Links section of this posting much farther below, as is always the case when I cite the numbers of these criitics-accumulation-services, even if I don’t always remember to remind you of that]) got me to the theater, along with my curiosity about whether Zellweger’s singing is as bad as LaSalle says it is: “On any given night, she could probably win best vocals at a karaoke bar.  But her voice is nothing like Garland’s, and her interpretive capacity, as a singer, is that of a talented amateur […] Let’s just say you’ve never heard Judy Garland sing.  It’s possible: She’s been dead for 50 years after all. […] ‘Judy’ would still be unsatisfying, because you would watch the movie wondering why everyone in the picture is making a fuss over the so-so-singer […] They should pull ‘Judy’ from release today and fix this, because they almost have themselves a terrific movie.”  Within this review LaSalle also repeats, in his vein of dismissing Zellweger’s vocal abilities, his total distain for the Elton John-biopic, Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher; review in our June 7, 2019 posting) “where [lead actor] Taron Egerton couldn’t sing and the script was awful and everything was a disaster” (on the contrary, I didn’t agree with any of those LaSalle pronouncements, accepted Egerton’s deliveries as being adequate to the presentation [even if not up to John’s unique originals but not nearly the distraction Mick claims], then noted how LaSalle in a slightly-later-column admitted the personal influence Elton’s music had on him as a young man, making it clear he’d have held Egerton to an impossible standard of recreating those earlier memories).  I don’t know what memory-connections Mr. LaSalle might have to Garland’s career (he was only 10 when she died), but he sure seems to be in his memory-lane-protection-mode again where Judy’s concerned.

 Yes, I’ll agree that Zellweger’s vocals aren’t what you’d expect to hear from the famed throat of Judy Garland (2 examples of which are at the end of the next section of this review), but, then again, LaSalle’s expectation Rocketman would have benefited (at least somewhat, although he didn’t care for the entire conception of the film, apparently not presenting a biography of Elton John in his early-fame-days in a manner this noted film critic would have constructed himself—as if anyone asked him to) from the use of actual Elton recordings in that film's soundtrack (as was done with Rami Malik lip-synching Freddy Mercury’s vocals in Bohemian Rhapsody [Bryan Singer, 2018; review in our November 7, 2018 posting] on his way to winning a Best Actor Oscar [which didn’t ring nearly as true for me as Christian Bale’s transformation into former-Vice President Dick—appropriate name—Chaney in Vice {Adam McKay, 2018: review in our January 10, 2019 posting}]).  However, I wonder what Mr. LaSalle—or anyone who shares his views on Zellweger’s singing—would want in terms of the use of Garland recordings for Renée to lip-synch-along-with; unlike the situation in Rocketman where a young Elton John’s portrayed by a young Taron Egerton so that recordings of the time would match the famous singer’s persona when played by an actor (I’ve seen Elton perform live in recent years; while his voice is still very pleasing, capable of carrying the emotions he wants to put into his songs, he still doesn’t sound exactly like he did on his records over 40 years ago [for the earliest ones] so you’d need the Rocketman-combination of early-career-depiction along with recordings from those years to achieve at least some of what LaSalle wanted in this earlier 2019 release), with Judy I don’t think you can get such a result because when she was doing those London shows just prior to her death I doubt there were recordings of those live performances* so you’d have to use something from earlier years which wouldn’t have been too accurate to what those faithful patrons heard during her last concert series in London by early 1969.

*Here’s a video from (seemingly) her final public performance, at Copenhagen’s Falkoner Centret on March 25, 1969 (a couple of months after she’d finished the England shows focused on in Judy) as she sings “Over the Rainbow,” with audio of the performance illustrated by pictures of Garland throughout her life; there’s a lot of orchestral intro before she starts (at 2:17 of 5:23), with her voice still distinctive but not really so great (at least in my opinion) just a short period before her death.  If you'd like to learn more about her life, though, check this extensive, well-documented biography.

 Sure, you can legitimately join LaSalle in wanting to hear the real Judy Garland (via Zellweger’s presence on screen) at her best, but I’ll accept the depiction of these London shows is likely valid, with her body as a whole, including her throat, pushed to near-beyond its limits, her delivery largely kept in check by a steady diet of pills and gin.  From hearing Garland in soundtracks from many movies throughout her career—as well as her famed Judy at Carnegie Hall album (1961, from a live performance that year; one of my first purchases from the Capitol Record Club, as a means of convincing my parents to join up [although I was enthralled with her singing as well, this 2-disc-record winning Grammys for Album of the Year, Best Female Vocal Performance, plus 2 more, also certified Gold in its run at #1 for 13 weeks on the Billboard charts], this early investment paying off a few years later when I was able to cash in on albums by The Beatles) and on her CBS TV The Judy Garland Show of 1963-‘64—you could certainly want a more lavish vocal performance than Zellweger provides here; yet, I can’t help but think (after some retrospective consideration of what I saw/heard on screen) this is probably the most honest depiction of Garland we could witness in these final months of her life, when she was a struggling shadow of her former self (although constantly fighting to overcome personal/emotional/physical/addiction problems that likely rarely let her fully show herself as the fully-talented-star she was so admired for being).  Renée sells it for me.

Bottom Line Final Comments: Audiences are just now getting a chance to see Judy as its debut weekend provided openings in limited release, 461 domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters, so the box-office-take was subdued at $2.9 million; however, according to Box Office Mojo, that’s from only about 323,000 tickets sold while last weekend’s income-champ, the animated-yeti-tale, Abominable (Tim Johnson, Todd Wilderman) sold a huge domestic total of 2.3 million tickets at 4,242 theaters for a domestic gross of $20.6 million (plus another $10.3 million in international sales) so, while Abominable shows a healthy  domestic per-screen-average of $4,859, Judy’s p-s-a is a whopping $6,313, topped only by a very few others showing on just 1 or 2 screens.  While naysayers like Mick LaSalle won’t help build word-of-mouth-support for Judy there are many others (including me) such as James Berardinelli of ReelViews who offer opinions of a much more supportive nature: “Although Judy doesn’t adhere rigorously to the chronology of the main character’s last months, it provides a compelling portrait of the tragic decline of one of America’s 20^th century icons. The predictability of the film’s arc is a reflection of the inevitable rhythms of drug and alcohol addiction and abuse. Zellweger’s performance is the glue that holds everything together. Taken in total, Judy is a workmanlike production where any deficiencies in the narrative are easily covered over by the acumen of the actress who can add this movie to […] her shelf of personal triumphs.”  I agree Zellweger’s performance is the primary reason to see this film, as Garland’s life experiences are easily-enough-available in many other formats, including watching how she overcame her personal insecurities/health issues to become a compelling presence on screen or record, with many movies (one of the clips in this 14 min. summary of her cinematic career’s quite a shocker) easily available to watch, clips from them—along with recorded triumphs—part of a trove of memories on YouTube (2 of which I’ll get to just below) if, like LaSalle, your goal is to see/hear this actual legend in one of her many showcases, but the ongoing Hollywood attempt to bring celebrities of the past back to life in a manner contemporary audiences can fully appreciate (beyond the technological tricks of the music industry in recent years of pairing a long-gone-idol in old footage with a modern star or simply projecting holographic images of the now-departed-star in a concert setting) succeeds well with Zellweger channeling Judy Garland in a way not intended to celebrate her decades of public triumphs but instead helps us better understand the constant emotional pain she carried which either contributed to or provided the impetus for circumstances that took her life, lost way too soon, a marvelously-talented-woman only 47 at the time of her death.

 I’ll close, as usual, with my Musical Metaphor to speak in an aural manner to what’s gone before in my ever-extended-commentary (a final tactic I attempt—with various levels of success—in all of my reviews, but it becomes especially appropriate when the film in question is already focused on music), although this time I’ll use 2 songs to accomplish my task because both are so relevant to the younger and older depictions of Ms. Garland in Judy.  First, addressing the troubled-but-not-fully-broken adult woman who’s the focus of this current film, I give you her impassioned-rendition of “The Man That Got Away” (from the second version—first one as a musical—of A Star Is Born [George Cukor, 1954]) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNDu75gEiIo (here I most especially encourage you to use the full-screen-format option at the lower left of the YouTube screen to better appreciate these wide-screen Cinemascope compositions, at that time an emerging device in Hollywood; Garland was nominated as Oscar’s Best Actress for this role but lost to [soon-to-be-Princess of Monaco] Grace Kelly for The Country Girl [George Seaton, 1954]), in which unknown-but-talented-singer, Esther Blodgett (Garland), pours her heart out in a ballad about how decent women often find themselves regretful their lives never fully came to fruition due to their longing for a mate they couldn’t confirm a connection with (serving as foreshadowing in this story, as fading movie star Norman Maine [James Mason] is enthralled by Esther, helps her to stardom [as she—like Garland in real life—changes her name, to Vicki Lester], becomes famous as he, beyond his career arc, made more obnoxious by his alcoholism, eventually kills himself so she won’t be dragged down by his misery because she’d been prepared to give up her career in an attempt to nurse him back to decency); for me, if you return to my title for this posting, this song serves as a Metaphor for Garland’s troubled career/personal situations, as being about the life, not merely the man, that got away (although there were plenty of those to boot as she married 5 husbands, divorced 4 of them).

 Even more poignantly, though, we’ll turn our attention once again to her signature tune, “Over the Rainbow,” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSZxmZmBfnU where Judy Garland as starry-eyed Dorothy Gale (the wind-rider) fantasizes about a faraway land where “troubles melt like lemon drops,” providing generations of audiences young and old with inspirations of taking a hero’s journey, overcoming fears, making your world a better place (even if it just turns out to be Kansas), although we watch with heartbreak as that hopeful girl from 1939 would grow into a woman where the wickedness of the culture that constantly overwhelmed her couldn’t be washed away with a bucketful of water, where the “little bluebirds” later defining her life were anything but “happy.”  Finally, If you’d like some further backstory on Zellweger’s preparation for the role, her live performances of the songs not intended as an attempt at replication, some background on this lead actor, and some very useful biographical details on Garland, I recommend this short video (13:43)—although be prepared for interruptions by ads at roughly 8:00 and 12:00—with some additional enhancement about the making of Judy in this breakdown of a scene narrated by Goold and Zellweger, which also includes actual footage of Garland from the era depicted in this film; to put a cap on all this, here’s a news report (8:37) from the time of her funeral, events not shown in Judy.  OK, that’s all from me for this posting; however, I’ll be glad to see you again next time you venture into the realm of Film Reviews by Two Guys in the Dark, a place where “the dreams that you dare to dream Really do come true” (at least until Google realizes what’s going on here and shuts us down).

            

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Here’s more information about Judy:

https://www.judythefilm.com/home/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4DruWO9WWE (32:10 interview with director Rupert Goold, producer David Livingstone, and actors Renée Zellweger, Finn Wittrock [occasional drops happen with the audio level])

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/judy_2019

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/judy 

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If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com.  (But if you truly have too much time on your hands you might want to explore some even-longer-and-more-obtuse-than-my-film-reviews—if that even seems possible—academic articles about various cinematic topics at my website, 

https://kenburke.academia.edu, which could really give you something to talk to me about.)

If we did talk, though, you’d easily see how my early-70s-age informs my references, Musical Metaphors, etc. in these reviews because I’m clearly a guy of the later 20^th century, not so much the contemporary world.  I’ve come to accept my ongoing situation, though, realizing we all (if fate allows) keep getting older, we just have to embrace it, as Joni Mitchell did so well in "The Circle Game," offering sage advice even when she was quite young herself.

By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile. Ken

P.S.  Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker.  But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion, lover, and wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"

—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the stadium) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest, a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes and wanes over the months/years to come.

             

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