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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Caught between two worlds, December 19, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Julia and Julia [VHS] (VHS Tape)
If you like a nice little movie that doesn't ask for too much thinking and delivers an easy to follow plotline with a satisfying answer in the end, this movie is not for you. If you like a movie that keeps you guessing and let's you find your own answer, you may like this. Julia is trapped between two worlds and we never really know which one is real - so it's the trying to figure it out part that's interesting in this movie. The movie is beautifuly photographed and offers images that stays in someone's mind for a while afterwards. There's a luminous quality to it like a painting from another time. Kathleen Turner's acting is sometimes a bit over the edge, but it strangely goes with the rest to make you wonder if her character's right to be angry at times or if she's just plain crazy. If you like Sting as a character actor, this may not satisfy you, for his, is mainly there as an escapism to Turner's other life. If, on the other hand, you love Sting for his indeniable sexual attraction and appetites, then this movie is a must. [Sting has incredible charisma which he uses with abandon]. So if you want a nice little movie with a nice little ending, keep away. If you want to watch Sting at his best - [being sexy]- rent this pronto - Sting will make you wild!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
kathleen in the twilight zone, September 30, 2000
This review is from: Julia and Julia [VHS] (VHS Tape)
If you're prepared to put logic aside, you can have a lot of fun with this film shot on high definition videotape for Italian TV and released theatrically. The title is misleading since Kathleen Turner as Julia only has one personality. It's her sense of reality that is multiplied. Grieving after the loss of her husband, she drives through a white cloud of smoke 6 years later, to enter the world where he had not died. Kathleen scores laughs as she tries to adapt to the expectations of those in her new (to her) world. It's similar to her later role in Peggy Sue Got Married, and there is the suggestion that the Julia that she has become has done things that Kathleen's Julia is unaware of since her husband, Gabriel Byrne, is projecting subtext. However Kathleen's bliss is short-lived when she is returned to the first reality where she starts a portentious affair with Sting. (We know from Brimstone & Treacle, and Plenty that anyone who dallies with him is in for trouble). Kathleen Turner is one of those actresses like Ingrid Bergman who can make the silliest predicament watcheable by their intense over-acting, even in spite of director Peter Del Monte being somewhat less than gallant in her sex scenes. He gives us a Hitchcock-ian set piece where Kathleen is being pursued and is rescued from the exiting crowd of a theatre, which is one of only two scenes where extras are used. The other is where she is being harassed by Sting in a piazza and the extras look non-plussed. Otherwise Julia's worlds are unusually underpopulated. Whether finally either reality is real or imaginary becomes unimportant since Del Monte is more interested in being metaphysically stylish. He cuts into Turner's sobbing in the car just before the cloud appears, as if he wasn't happy with any of her takes and had to splice them together, but also provides the film with a lovely Maurice Jarre score.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hmmm..., October 29, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Julia and Julia [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I'm not sure whether this is a 3 star or a 2 star movie. Somewhere in between. The fact that it was shot on video tape gives an odd feeling to the whole thing, much like watching an Italian soap opera, as one reviewer noted. It was clearly ahead of its time, given that movies about characters experiencing alternate versions of their lives have taken off only in the past few years. I like the genre, however, and this is an interesting addition. It is well written. Julia "switches" at the most unexpected yet most effective moments. Just when she can be sure she is in one world, that she can count on and play by its rules, she is rudely awakened in the other one. Poor Julia. If I had a problem it was that the videotape lowers the quality of the production, making it difficult to become engaged in the story. Kathleen Turner's acting suffers from the "smaller screen" quality, too: what might work on film looks too exaggerated here. Sting and Byrne, both quieter, brooding types, suffer less. And what exactly is happening here? Are Julia's husband and son alive in an alternate reality? Is it all happening inside her head? Is she schizophrenic, as another reviewer suggested (an intriguing idea)? Or is she perhaps being haunted by Paolo's ghost? The answer--well, the movie leaves you to decide for yourself, which is frustrating. Sometimes, I just want to know *what happened.* The schizophrenia theory is good, although of course it doesn't explain that picture at the end. Myself, I like the idea of alternate realities. It's one of those "whatever works for you" questions. Bottom line: if you are a fan of any of the three stars, this is a good one to have. (It also features a Sting nude scene, so consider that!) It's good if you like the genre. Otherwise, rent first, then decide.
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