Movie Review: Judy

Judy Garland was a respected and admired actress/musician of her time. She entertained and excited millions with her role as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. But Rupert Goold’s recent interpretation of her time in London fails to fully represent her talents.

Judy opens with the titular character getting kicked out of their hotel after an awkward discussion with the manager regarding room service. They are forced to return to Judy’s ex-husband to let the children stay there, to which Judy loses custody and is forced to move to London to earn money.

While in London she is sings in front of crowds every day and is constantly facing new obstacles to overcome. She remarries but loses her confidence and seems to have the whole world against her.

Renée Zellweger has seemingly been universally praised for her performance as Judy Garland. Famously she even lost a significant amount of weight for this role and she took a lot of practice to perfect her singing voice. Certainly, it wouldn’t be fair to discredit the effort that she put into attempting to replicate Judy Garland’s later years. No matter the effort she puts into the role, if the performance isn’t of a similar calibre then there’s nothing to celebrate. As such, Renée Zellweger delivers an adequate performance that doesn’t deserve to be celebrated more than any other role she had.

Renée Zellweger’s singing fails to capture the beauty of Garland’s original and instead sounds like a broken record. She fails to hit the highs and apparently this was authentic to Garland’s original performances as she was at that age. If this is the case, one must question why such an emphasis was placed on Renée’s voice that we were forced to listen to it so often. As each song carried on, I found myself wanting to block it out and excuse myself until it was over. This became especially evident at the final song, ‘Over the Rainbow’ as Renée completely failed to replicate the majesty and power of the song. The only redeeming factor came from the film’s audience singing after Renée finished the first verse. Her singing was so out of place that when I first viewed Judy I believed she had been dubbed over in post by someone else.

The settings were often basic and lacked imagination. Despite most of the film being set in London, the setting was stuck as one or two rooms or a generic street. If it wasn’t for the references to past pop-culture icons (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones) the film could be set in the modern day.

It wasn’t all bad though. One aspect of the film I enjoyed very much was the frequent use of the colour yellow through Judy’s rougher times, be it when she had to leave her children or got angry at people. This is obviously a reference to how The Wizard of Oz changed her life and, as is shown in the film, caused her pain and misery.

Overall, Judy is yet another forgettable 2-hour long insult to your face. There’s little to compliment the movie for. If Renée Zellweger does get an Oscar for this, I’ll be further disappointed in the Academy, but It’s an honour for anyone. Either way, Judy is not something I wish to experience for any longer than I already have.