JUDY Directed by Rupert Gould Starring: Renée Zwellweger, Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon, Jessie Buckley, Finn Wittrock You’re saying I have to leave my children, if I want to make enough money for me to be with my children. - Judy
There are very few films that deserve the hype of media publicity that they are given, but Judy is one of them. It is the biopic of legendary singer Judy Garland when she arrived in London in the winter of 1968 to perform a series of sold-out concerts at the Talk of the Town. It is based on the play by Peter Quilter as it depicts Judy when she was drinking and pill-popping, impetuously getting married to Mickey Dean and hanging out with a gay couple who are devoted fans. Zwellweger is a revelation and is odds-on favourite for an Academy Award come Hollywood’s biggest ‘glitz and glamour night’. The film looks to Judy when she was 16 who was told by the Head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: Louis B Mayer: You are my favourite. She was cast in the now classic movie: The Wizard of Oz which turned a young Judy Garland into the world-wide star she became in films like For Me and My Gal, Meet Me in St Louis, Easter Parade, In the Good Old Summertime, If You Feel Like Singing, A Star is Born. Some of these films are touched upon in Judy. What gives this film the ‘must-see’ stamp of approval is Zwellweger’s brilliance both in the dramatic sequences which reveal the painful suffering and masochistic tendencies that almost destroy her and her ability to walk or stagger out on stage to face the boos or standing ovations. Her ups and downs 4
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