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Being Julia : Widescreen Edition

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"Being Julia" is a homage to the legendary hammy and self-absorbed actors of yesteryear. Set in 1930's London, the movie stars Annette Bening as Julia Lambert, a forty-five year old actress who suddenly realizes that her best years may be behind her. She is exhausted, depressed, and bored with her life. Her marriage to her business manager, played with his usual aplomb by Jeremy Irons, is for the most part, platonic. What better way to perk things up then to embark on a foolhardy affair with a man half her age? Julia takes as her lover a fawning American, played stiffly by the plastic and conventionally handsome Shaun Evans. Julia throws caution to the winds. She falls hard for the impoverished boy and plies him with expensive trinkets and cash gifts. Meanwhile, a young blonde actress, Avice Crichton, comes along to challenge Julia and the ambitious upstart threatens to upstage the older woman both on and off the stage.

"Being Julia" has a nice look, with its vintage cars, period furniture, and authentic costumes. The musical background, which includes such ditties as "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries," sets the appropriate mood. However, the plot of this film is as trifling and paper thin as its shallow characters. The main reason to see "Being Julia" is to enjoy Annette Bening's amusing and effervescent performance as the ultimate diva. Julia is a talented and vivacious prima donna who appears to be vain and supremely self-confident. Bening shows the fear and the loneliness beneath Julia's haughty demeanor. Julia senses that sooner or later, her star will lose its luster. She knows in her heart that her ultimate enemy is old age; it is the one foe that she can never vanquish.

Annette Bening has one of her best roles as the aging stage star, Julia Lambert. Set in 1938 London, the film follows Julia's exploits as she attempts to find some meaning in her drama-filled life. Her relationship with her husband (Jeremy Irons) has always been "open," so she decides to have a fling with a young American (Shaun Evans, who is actually English). Unfortunately, what was meant to be a fun lark turns into something more serious, threatening to upset Julia's life completely, especially when the lovely young Avice Crichton (Judy Punch) enters the picture. However, Julia is far too strong to become a second-string player in her own life, leading to some delicious retribution.

"Being Julia" is a very enjoyable movie with some spark and playfulness not always seen in period films. Bening of course is quite stunning, and she brilliantly portrays her character's late-in-life personal growth. She deservedly won a slew of acting awards for the role, including a Golden Globe (Best Actress - Musical or Comedy), and was nominated for an Oscar. However, the entire cast is quite good, especially Miriam Margolyes and Juliet Stevenson. The screenplay by celebrated writer Ronald Harwood (Oscar winner for "The Pianist") is solid, managing to balance some very nice comic moments with straight drama. The script, incidentally, is based on W. Somerset Maugham's "Theatre" - I haven't read the book, but the movie was good enough that I want to read it soon.

I often enjoy movies that take a peak behind the scenes of the theater world, and "Being Julia" is a solid addition to the genre. Hungarian director Istvan Szabo has been in this territory before with the Glenn Close vehicle "Meeting Venus." His work here is more accomplished than in that movie, but his direction still tends to be a bit clunky at times. In particular, he sometimes directs scenes such that a laugh line is cut off somehow; the editing might be at fault in some cases though. Overall though, "Being Julia" is a very good film that is likely to appeal to theater fans as well as viewers who enjoy period pieces. Highly recommended.

Being Julia is not only remarkable for Annette Bening's sensationally nuanced performance as aging stage diva, Julia Lambert, but also for its gorgeous recreation of the pre-war London theatre world. With an astute eye for period detail, and some lush production values, Being Julia brings to life a world of glamorous drawing rooms, enchanting theatres, plumy British accents, and some of the most beautiful period-appropriate costumes that one will ever see in a movie. Of course, the multi-faceted talent of Bening is the glue that binds all this together with a performance that is easily one of the year's best. Bening plays Julia with such a quick, high-spirited, and irascible charm, that even in her darkest moments, the viewer cannot help but root for her.

The story begins with Julia at the height of her fame. She has plenty of money, lots of adoring fans, a teenage son, and she's married to Michael Gosselyn (Jeremy Irons), her director and manager. While sturdy professionally and good companions, Michael and Julia's marital relations are unfortunately far from intimate. With a penchant for the "terribly modern," they both seek physical solace outside the marriage. Julia lets Lord Charles (a delightful Bruce Greenwood), wine and dine her, and while she's terribly keen on him, he seems reluctant to become involved romantically. Julia also has the spirit of her cantankerous old acting coach (Michael Gambon) to keep her company, and he follows her around, whispering sound advice in her ear, while watching her outsmart her adversaries. Juliet Stevenson - marvelous in a low-key supporting role - plays her maid, and also offers Julia companionship and consolation in times of need.

Feeling unsatisfied and worrying about becoming older, Julia eventually falls for Tom Fennel (a wonderful Shaun Evans), a stage-struck young American and self confessed snob. Tom's motivations are far from romantically genuine, and perhaps he's just a callous, careless, and coldhearted gigolo. Julia doesn't care, because at least for a while, their affair gives Julia a second taste of youth. Forever the actress, Julia throws herself at him with a mixture of reckless abandon and cynical calculation, and it is to the credit of Bening that the viewer never really knows when Julia is acting or not. Things get complicated when people start to talk, and her husband begins to think that she's having an affair. It doesn't help that Tom is also stricken with Avice Crichton (Lucy Punch), an up-an-coming but hysterically awful young actress who wants a supporting role in Julia's new play.

Being Julia is all about the sorrows and joys of being devoted to one's art. The film inevitably raises the question of where does one draw the line between art and life. Julia has become dissatisfied with acting, she's bored and frustrated, but she soon realizes that acting is ultimately her life. As she plots her revenge against those who are trying to usurp her, she realizes that she must use the one thing that she knows best - her acting talent. Ms. Bening owns this film, and as she gracefully gravitates from relaxed humour to steely composure, then onto histrionic distress, one gets the feeling that she'll probably be accepting the gold statuette come Oscar night. When the wonderful climactic final scene turns the action on its head, the viewer will finally see that Julia (and Bening), while remarkably triumphant, are also absolutely sensational. Mike Leonard December 04.

For sheer exhilarating, exuberant joy, W. Somerset Maugham's novella 'Theatre' as adapted for the screen by Ronald Harwood and directed with finesse and flair by Istvan Szabo is a triumph.
Few films this year capture the beauty of acting, the class differences of pre-WW II London, the joy of the theater with the style and class of this fine film.

The time is 1938 and 'Actress Extraordinaire' Julia Lambert (played with total commitment and gusto by the gifted Annette Bening) has reached middle age and is bored with her life. Her husband Michael (Jeremy Irons in a superb Jeremy Irons-type role) is her ever-faithful (!) husband/director who encourages her against taking a break from the theater because of her continuing success as an actress and 'money-maker'. The two are in trio with wealthy patroness Dolly de Vries (Miriam Margolyes) who worships Julia not only for her acting but also as a longed for consort.

Enter Tom Fennel (Shaun Evans - the only weak link in this cast) who is an American fan who woos and beds Julia (he is actually a gold digger) and in doing so revives Julia's lust for life and the stage. When a young actress Avice (Lucy Punch) wins the attention of Tom's wandering eye, Julia discovers her 'foolish affair' is little more than theater in the world and sets out to recover her posture as only a practiced Actress can.

The resulting "final act" of this very theatrical piece revels in the wily ways of turning secret affairs into public awareness and Julia Lambert manages to rise like a phoenix (though a wounded one) in a grand climatic turn on the stage.

The cast of characters is brilliantly played: Michael Gambon is Julia's 'ghost tutor' Jimmy Langston (her long-dead original acting coach) who directs her every move from the sidelines; Juliet Stevenson is Evie, Julia's dresser who is the only one who sees things as they really are; Bruce Greenwood (with continuing evidence that he is one of our most under-appreciated actors) is Julia's platonic paramour Lord Charles; and Tom Sturridge is Julia's son Roger who is about the same age as her 'lover' Tom.

The cinematography rolls like a rapturous Viennese waltz, the sets within and without the theater are gorgeous, and the musical score sparkles. Maugham's premise that life on the stage is at times more real than life in the 'real' world is played to the hilt. But the towering achievement of this film is Annette Bening: she completely inhabits this role and is indeed 'being Julia' every moment. It is a performance worthy of major awards and certainly her best in a line of fine performances. In truth, this is a 10 Star film!

This film plays homage to the lost age of British stage Divas and a time (1930's) when film acting was still viewed with snobbishness and the stage was a world of riotously overbearing performers. Benning is perfectly cast in the lead and is every inch the slighty unhinged stage Goddess. Speaking as a Brit I also have to say that her accent is utterly perfect, it surpasses Rene Zelweiger in her Bridget Jones role; of whom it has to be said, did brilliantly.
The film is very much the telling of a midlife crisis, coupled with the fear of fading stardom. The story takes place in the closing years of the 1930's, when European politics loomed large and cast an ugly shadow over British life. The story of Julia herself, is the life of a woman who has honed her craft of flambouyant acting so superbly, neither she, her social circle nor us as the audience is ever entirely sure of the boundry between real Julia and Julia the actress. Initially this pampered Madam is hilariously self-obsessed but learns to be more involved with her real world via a series of difficult events, her Son's coming of age and demands for honesty from his parents. An affair with an American fan who see's himself as Gigolo but is horrible out of his depth and the fight to remain No 1 in the face of competiton from a scheming young actress.
Julia discovers much about the difference between selfish longing and cherishing what you already have in real time.
Her journey leads to the ultimate performance in which she weaves all the strands of her personal struggle together along with settling a few scores and levelling some land. Benning is marvellous, givng a performance of sheer delight and carrying the film with ease, a chance she unfortunately gets all to rarely. She is supported well by a sterling cast of fine British actors including Irons as her stoic but slightly devious Husband, Margoleys as her gossip driven (and some might say, hopelessly smitten, lesbian friend).
For me the shinning support comes from Gambon as the ever present, ghostly figure of her long dead mentor who guides her through life and stage performances. Also Stevenson, Benning's faithful maid who is possibly the only character who has a "real" relationship with her employer and is able to cut to the chase and see beyond Julia's "performing", in ever scene they have together. Delightfully saucy, bitchy and a frivalous pre-war fun in London's cut throat West End.

With the Oscar buzz for Annette Benning and its focus on the theatre, I felt that this movie would end up being a deep drama. Instead, it was more of a farce and a clever exploration of how acting an alter one's personality.

Annette Benning's character, Julia, is an accomplished actress who wrestles with boredom while seeking to escape age and the potential diminishing of her powers. She needs her status as a grand actress even as she is bored by that status and wonders what will become of her should she lose her youth. Early in the movie, she throws a tantrum and demands that her husband end the run of "Farewell My Love" that she stars in. But a young American appears on the scene and she begins an affair seeking to capture her lost youth.

For me, the movie was hard to care about at first. Mostly, this was because I had a hard time rooting for any of the characters to succeed. Nobody seemed to be a postive presence. Julia? Didn't dig her, too entitled. The American? Quickly becomes transparent as a gold digger, and not a good one at that. Her husband? Emotionally unavailable and probably the cause of some of Julia's frustration. Plus, the movie uses Julia's old acting teacher as a quasi ghost who appears to her and comments on her real life performances. I found this device tiring at times.

But the movie takes off as you realize that Julia is aware that she is being duped. She does begin to have some degree of self-awareness. I do not wish to give away the ending, but I feel that ultimately, "Being Julia" succeeds because it raises very real questions about the nature of acting. Do we act when we put on a performance in our social lives? Are we really acting on stage when we draw upon true events from our real lives for inspiration? As a performer and a musician, those questions led me to think about these characters deeply and I was ultimately glad that I gave this movie a chance.


Be patient with this one, but I still think it's worth the ride.

3.5 stars

--SD

This film is a complete and utter delight from start to finish! I found it at my library and have watched it three times in a row -- every time I see and hear more subtlety. The story is a wonderful romp through the ups and downs of one woman's mid-life crisis without being cliche or maudlin. Bravo to Annette Benning for the courage to keep her own face and not get alot of expression-freezing plastic surgery as she ages. She is more beautiful and radiant than ever, because she is real, and even more accomplished at her craft. Kudos also to Jeremy Irons and the rest of the cast for great acting. Benning indeed should have had the Oscar for this tour de force. I'm buying the movie, the soundtrack and the novella by Maughm.

"Being Julia" is one of those old-fashioned "theatre" movies that they simply don't make any more (but fortunately for us, they did!). Based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham (author of "The Letter"), the film is set in London of the 1930s just after Prime Minister Chamberlain had declared that there would be "peace in our time."

This entire delicious concoction is under the brilliant direction of Istvan Szabo. The production, however, would not have been so magnificently authentic without the design of Lucianna Arrighi (who deservedly won an Academy Award for "Howard's End", and also designed "Remains of the Day" and "Anna and the King"). Arrighi has created the atmosphere of the thirties down to the last art deco knife and fork. Arrighi's sets sweep us back to that elegant era before the world lost its innocence.

Julia, so beautifully acted by Annette Bening, is a pampered, self-absorbed leading lady of the West-End Stage. Bored with her own success as well as her less-than-successful marriage to her impresario-husband (the always-suave Jeremy Irons), she is drawn into an affair with a brash, young and unscrupulous American, just graduated from Yale, and in London in order to move upwards as fast as possible. Naturally he moves on as fast as possible to a younger woman, who, also upwardly mobile, dumps him in order to share both Julia's stage and her husband. However, with the moral support of her sardonic dresser (a delightfully funny Juliet Stevenson), who knows all of Julia's real life lines so well that she mouths them behind her back, and her literally spiritual mentor (Michael Gambon), Julia accomplishes her revenge on the lot of them: her faithless lover, her philandering husband, and their "Eve Harrington" wannabe ingenue.

"Being Julia" is essentially a play of revenge. And the revenge is sooohh delicious.

Pure chocolate mousse!!!

Annette Benning turns in a delightful, delicious performance in "Being Julia." While the movie is a slight trifle, her performance is substantaial and will leave a lasting memory.

Benning plays Julia Lambert, a mid-40's stage actress in London in the late 1930's. Her life defines glamour. When she enters a restaurant, people applaud. She wears furs and jewels with aplomb. She has a loving, if not always attentive husband (Jeremy Irons), who also serves as her manager/ director. Others in her constellation include the inevitable devoted maid (Juliet Stevenson), older unattractive female friend and an always attentive Lord.

Yet Julia is bored. And her boredom leads her into an unwise affair with a shallow, young American. He, in turn, becomes the lover of a young actress, Avice, who seeks to undermine Julia. And by the way, Avice is having an affair with Julia's husband.

Throughout the movie, Benning amazes the viewer with her multi layered performance. When is Julia "acting" and when is she being herself? Benning shows you what a fine line it has become in Julia's life.

There are some flaws to this movie. Irons' part is woefully underwritten. And the film never explores the motives of the characters. Did Irons put the American in Julia's path to relieve her of her boredom? Did he become involved with Avice as an act of revenge? You never know and you never have the opportunity to speculate.

Still this is a delightful movie with wonderful acting, fabulous costumes and some very funny lines.

Annette Benning displays all her talents and charms in theis briliant comedy providing her with an opportunity to revel in a character. For this splendid performance she was nominated for an academy award and no other actress in recent memory has deserved an oscar more than she does in this movie. All the critics raved about her performance.

Watch this movie and see a consummate actress at the height of her powers doing a a light comedy with such precision it will take your breath away.

If you have ever enjoyed the theater or the movies, this is a film you must see!