OSCARS 2020: Judy (2019)

Somehow, it seems fitting that Renee Zellweger should make her big comeback project playing Judy Garland. Zellweger was born the year Garland died. Zellweger is very close now to the age Judy was the last year of her life. Perhaps most pressingly, one feels an odd poetry in the pairing. Once among the highest grossing actresses in Hollywood and a previous Oscar winner, Zellweger starred in a series of high profile flops and barely-seen indies before taking a long hiatus from the screen. When the media discussed her at all, it was catty gossip about her appearance. One can't help but wonder if Zellweger felt a kinship with Garland, whose always-tumultuous personal life and floundering career were often the target of Hollywood rumors. If that's the case, it's all the more fitting that Zellweger may win her second Oscar for “Judy.”

Loosely based off the stage play “End of the Rainbow,” the film follows 46-year old Judy Garland in the last few months of her life. Garland is broke, addicted to pills, exhausted, and technically homeless. Her third husband, Sidney Luft, is working hard to get custody of their two children. In order to make some quick cash, and with the encouragement of new boyfriend Mickey Dean, Garland agrees to take a series of show dates in England. She struggles to put on good shows every night while still being ravaged by her addictions, her loneliness, and a life time of regrets.

Too often, we tend to think of troubled celebrities only in tabloid gossip terms. They're “train wrecks” or “washed-up.” “Judy” asks us to consider an in-crisis celeb in the context of a difficult life. The opening scene, one of many flashbacks, has Louis B. Mayer telling a young Garland she's not that pretty. She was given speed to wake up in the morning and downers to go to sleep at night, leaving her in a constant state of exhaustion. She was barely allowed to eat, to maintain a girlish figure. Her romantic life was controlled, every hour of her day was scheduled, and any teenage rebellion was met with brutal discipline. Yes, Garland was a mess at the end of a life. “Judy” accurately portrays her as a sloppy alcoholic, an irresponsible drug addict, a complete emotional basket case who clung to whatever relationship made her feel something positive. Yet it also makes us understand how she got to that point. Who wouldn't end up so troubled after such a lousy life?

In fact, “Judy” works so hard to portray the turmoil of Garland's last few weeks alive that it proves rather harrowing at times. She goes out on stage, inebriated, is jeered at by her audience, and eventually thrown off. An affecting montage interacts the youthful Garland's dance practice with adult Judy's inability to sleep at all. She sits in her bathroom, shaking apart, before an assistant has to drag her before an unappreciative audience. Yet, as much as director Rupert Goold focuses on her collapsing mental state, he also pauses for occasional moments of ecstasy among the agony. A touching scene has Garland bonding with two gay fans, the two finding solace while singing at the piano. When Judy first goes on-stage, she nails it, delivering a powerful performance. As often as she fails, she has pitch-perfect nights too, portrayed in energetic montages. This push-and-pull, the struggle of the artist to make art while fighting their personal demons, is most brilliantly portrayed in the film's emotional climax.

Obviously being a film about a woman in the middle of a crisis, “Judy” is really made for the kind of big acting that the Academy loves. It would've been easy for a performer to overdo it. Renee Zellweger, after all, affects Garland's distinctive vocal patterns and does her damnedest to mimic Judy's famous singing voice. Combined with a stunning make-up job that makes her look startlingly similar to the real life Garland, it would've been easy to dismiss this as a typical awards bait performance. Yet Zellweger really does act her ass off. She imbues every line with emotion, making you laugh and cry with Garland as she reaches for those artistic heights – the feeling of love from an adoring audience, the only love she's ever really known – while being pulled down by a life time of problems.

“Judy” is surprisingly great. I went in with pretty much no expectations, figuring this would be one of those Oscar movies notable for a showy performance and nothing else. And it's not like I'm exactly a Garland scholar or anything. Instead, I was met with a bracing and matter-of-fact depiction of addiction and mental illness. The emotional moments hit me right in the gut, getting me misty-eyed right when it was called for. Goold's direction is stylish but intimate. Zellweger gives a genuinely fantastic performance. Will she win the Oscar? These things can be unpredictable but it wouldn't be entirely unearned if she did. [9/10]