Rant #2,456: Good Thing

I hope everyone's Rosh Hashanah was a good one.

The holiday is just one component of the Jewish high holy days, which culminates with the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, which begins next Tuesday night and stretches through sundown on Wednesday.

On Sunday, before we went to my sister for our Rosh Hashanah dinner--which was followed by another such dinner at my parents on Monday evening--my family and I actually took in a movie, something we had not done in about a year and might not do for another year--the movies have simply gotten too expensive, and we have learned to wait for films to come out on the movie channels if we really need to see them, which we generally don't.

Anyway, we saw "Judy," the film starring Renee Zelweger as the title character, Judy Garland, and I have to say that for once, it was worth seeing a movie in a movie theater.

The film, loosely based on the Broadway play "The End of the Rainbow," focuses on the last months and days of Garland, which were filled with pills, booze, health scares, lots of tumult, and somehow, lots of great performances on stage, seemingly the only place that Garland felt at home during this sad, last period of her relatively short life.

The film shows that even as a young performer, Garland was abused, mentally, physically, emotionally and sexually by those supposedly watching over her career at MGM, and this pattern of abuse kind of followed her during her entire life, although later on, it was self abuse that pretty much did her in.

At one time, Garland was probably one of the most famous people in the world, and MGM treated her strictly, passing her off as a playful teenager while treating her basically as a commodity that had to be watched nearly 24 hours a day.

But the movie really shines showing the adult pieces of her life, and yes, they were pieces, broken pieces that occasionally came together for brilliance, but often didn't fit together in any cognizant way to make any sense.

Zellweger--who is made up to look like Garland and pretty much has just about everything about Garland's look and mannter down pat and on display in this movie--really makes the film believable in an impossible role, that of portraying an icon that just about everyone, from every generation, knows.

We see Garland go through ups and downs, both on stage and in her personal life, fueled with pills and booze and bad relationships..

We see her trying to be a mother to her two youngest kids, Lorna and Joey, and we see her acting as a grown up kid herself, not being able to handle herself or her health without handlers and men in her life who might have loved her, but used her at the same time.

Zellweger really got it right, and she is the standout in the film, propelling it--even singing a song or two out of the Garland songbook--and doing so in a way that you almost believe that you are watching Garland herself performing on screen at times.

Another standout in the movie is Jessie Buckley as Rosalyn Wilder, her handler, for a lack of a better expression, during her last run in England. The red-headed Buckley plays the role as one of the more sympathetic characters revolving around Garland in the film, and you can actually feel her fury--and her pity--when dealing with Garland, who could be impossible while imbibing pills and alcohol on a constant basis.

Although the ending appears to be a bit contrived--I wonder if the incident actually happened?--it puts a cap on this film, which is sure to be up for numerous Academy Awards. Zellweger will certainly lead the pack as Best Actress, as she handled this impossible role in a nearly letter-perfect way.

So yes, I would see "Judy" on the big screen, because Garland--whether in all of those Mickey Rooney movies she was in through "The Wizard of Oz" through "A Star is Born" and even though her later films--was meant to be seen on the big screen. Although short in stature, Garland commanded the screen and concert stage like few have before or since, and thus, seeing her on the big screen is a natural place to view her powerful presence.

You generally get three different responses when a good movie ends: applause, murmuring or silence. When "Judy" ended, the theater was as silent as could be.

And I think that that is a testament to what a good movie the audience just saw, as well as the presence that Garland was and will probably always be, even more than a half century after her death at age 47.

Go see the movie. It is a downer, but it shows how one person packed so much into such a short life, a life that was almost designed for her as a child and which she would eventually succumb to.

Highly recommended.