Judy is Bland and Hollow

Director Rupert Goold is perhaps most notable for his phenomenal Macbeth film, which is singlehandedly responsible for sparking my interest in the play (and Patrick Stewart played no small role in swaying my heart, of course). Unfortunately his 2019 biopic, Judy, is bland and tasteless. As one critic states, Judy shows the lows, but it carefully avoids navigating the highs of Judy Garland's life.

As many know, Judy Garland's life was one full of abuse, addiction, and terrible trauma. She acted and sang under prying eyes for most of her life, was sexually abused by disgusting men in the film industry who were too big to worry about consequences for their actions, and struggled to have the relationship with her children she yearned for. Goold's film, Judy, observes these tragedies within her life through a cold and callous lens. We watch her perform, indulge in her addiction, and get some incredibly painful flashbacks to some of her childhood abuse. There's never any light in Judy, all we see is absolute hopelessness.

The film offers a faint glimmer of joy through Judy befriending a gay couple, but all this friendship amounts to is the men joining in with a chorus of fans joyfully singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." We don't see her massive impact on the gay community, we don't get to enjoy the way a woman's suffering amounted to good because she brought hope, love, and joy to a community of outcasts who even called each other "friends of Dorothy" (as in Dorothy, yes, from The Wizard of Oz). The audience isn't rewarded with even an implication of the hope she inspired in gay men and other societal outcasts. There's no shot of the rainbow flag in the breeze as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" plays, instead there's just a 118 minute montage of Judy Garland suffering.

For a film based on a woman who inspired so much hope, the entire mess feels hopeless.

The film's failures to depict Judy Garland's close friendship with the LGBT community or to show any sort of hope or joy within her at all are far from its only foibles. Renee Zellwegger's performance is terribly distracting. She's simply not believable as Judy Garland. Instead, she's believable as Renee Zellwegger playing Renee Zellwegger playing Judy Garland, but I suppose that's too much of a mouthful to put on any posters. There are a few instances in which she attempts to capture Garland's mannerisms, but for the most part she simply doesn't seem like her at all.

The musical numbers only make their differences all the more glaring. Zellwegger's high voice is far from Garland's own contralto voice, the lowest classical female voice type there is. In certain sequences it feels as though Zellwegger should have been imitating Marilyn Monroe instead. Seeing characters swoon over hearing Judy Garland sing only to be treated to Zellwegger covering The Trolley Song feels like slipping into a nightmare world where Garland's beautiful low voice has been replaced by a more traditional vocalist's. Halfway through the movie I wished I was watching Down With Love instead, at least that had Ewan McGregor and wasn't disrespecting the legacy of a dead woman (yes, yes, I know the only similarities between these two are Zellwegger and her singing, but still).

In conclusion, Judy was really disappointing. I expected a film honoring a fantastic singer and incredibly complex person, and instead I was treated to whatever bizarre Silvia Plath's Bell Jar-esque tear-jerker schlock that was. I'm really, really sorry Judy.