Review – Judy (2019)

I’d been dying to see this movie for ages. I’m guessing that Judy Garland would be a really hard act to pull off, and I have to admit to being slightly nervous about watching this, due to the mixed reviews it’s received. Well’ I needn’t have worried. Renee Zellweger doesn’t only play the role to perfection, she totally inhabits the character. In short, she nails it.

The movie mainly concentrates on her final series of shows, at the Talk Of The Town in London around 1969. The club owned and run by Bernard Delfont, attracted the cream of the showbusiness world, and regularly hosted sell out shows by all the popular acts of the day.

At this time Judy was practically broke, and work was very thin on the ground Stateside. She’s then offered the chance to make a lot of money very quickly by doing a series of shows in London. The only sticking point is, that she’s to travel alone and leave her children at home with their father, her ex husband. She eventually accepts and everything gets off to a flying start, but due to the fact she misses her children, things start to go downhill rapidly. She frequently arrives at the theatre drunk, and gets into altercations with audience members, who heckle her for stumbling about on the stage, unable to perform.

There are frequent flashbacks, most of which show her unhappy time on the set of The Wizard Of Oz, where she was treated absolutely very badly, mostly by the head of the studio Louis B Mayor. It’s easy to see how she ended up the way she did.

One of the most touching scenes for me, came about half way through. She meets two lifelong fans, by the stage door after a show. All they want is an autograph, but they end up wandering the streets of London with her, trying to find somewhere to have a meal at her request. After finding everywhere closed, they eventually go back to the guys appartment, and spend the evening playing the piano and just chatting. She’s just Judy for a few short hours, and it’s the most relaxed and at ease, we see her, in the entire movie. If that’s a true story i’m guessing the two fans never forgot that night.

To sum up, this is a beautifully made biopic featuring a true legend, played be an actress who, as far as i’m concerned, becomes Judy Garland. Absolute perfection and a definite five star movie.