The Guardian - 31.08.2019

Sat urday 31 Aug ust 2019 The Guardian •

News^17

Film review Frail magic of London

swan song sugarcoats true sadness

Peter Bradshaw

F

or Judy Garland fans, the

fi nal station of the cross

in the ordeal of her last

years was a fi ve-week

booking at the Talk of

the Town nightclub

in London in 1969, which she

desperately needed for the money.

In those famous and often chaotic

concerts she appeared frail, unwell,

tipsy or bleary- eyed: mannerisms

that she had long since incorporated

into her live act. But they were real

at some level. Also real were the

many fl ashes of the old magic; arias

made more glorious for having been

wrenched from her battered heart.

This movie is about that troubled

period: a defi ant last stand six

months before her death, in full

view of her passionate fans. It was

Judy’s emotional Alamo in the face

of parasitic husbands, spiteful press

and misogynist producers – starting

with the studio chief Louis B Mayer,

who ruined her childhood on the

yellow brick road to stardom.

Judy has been adapted by the

screenwriter Tom Edge from Peter

Quilter ’s stage play End of the

Rainbow , and is directed by Rupert

Goold ; Renée Zellweger gives

us a heartfelt, studied portrayal

of Garland. Her performance

and the fi lm itself are forthright

and un-camp, though careful to

acknowledge the importance of

Garland’s gay fanbase by adroitly

creating two fi ctional gay superfans.

It is clearly infl uenced by Garland’s

own self-mythologising movie about

her British period, I Could Go on

Singing (196 3), about the gutsy yet

vulnerable singing star doing shows

at the London Palladium.

But this is really a standard-issue

biopic heartwarmer about a

Hollywood star in decline and in

Blighty: a bit like the recent Stan &

Ollie , about Laurel and Hardy’s fi nal

British tours. The fi lm sugarcoats

Garland’s physical deterioration,

her addictions, her wretchedness

and her mortality. Paradoxically,

pills (the fi lm doesn’t do justice to

the scale of her drug dependency).

She is uneasy with her British

promoter Bernard Delfont (Michael

Gambon), but has support from

her exasperated fi ctional assistant

Rosalyn Wilder ( Jessie Buckley ).

So the London gigs commence,

interspersed with fl ashbacks to her

unhappy childhood on the Oz set,

with Darci Shaw as the young Judy.

In the present day, there’s a chance

of romance with a musician called

Mickey Deans ( Finn Wittrock ). You

don’t have to be a Garlandologist to

fi gure out if that is going to end well.

Zellweger rises resolutely to the

challenge of playing Judy on stage

and off : her eyes crinkle in tandem

with a tremulous pout , although she

is perhaps less convincing with the

wide-eyed Garland gaze. Her walk

and stance cleverly convey the sense

of someone who is only in her 40s

but feels older, and is rejuvenated by

the electric thrill of being on stage.

Yet the fi lm missed a trick in

the way it depicted the diffi cult

relationship with her daughter Liza

Minnelli (played here by Gemma-

Leah Devereux ): there is one low-

key meeting between them at a

party in which Judy weakens Liza’s

confi dence, but it is underpowered.

There was only ever really one

tune to end this fi lm, and it duly

arrives along with an interesting and

realistic touch about the necessity

of not expecting miracles. Zellweger

gives us a tribute to Judy Garland’s

fl air and to that ethos of the show

needing to go on being both a burden

and driving force. Yet Garland’s

terrible sadness is mostly invisible.

however, it’s the most relaxed and

personal performance we have seen

from Zellweger in a while.

She plays a resilient Judy who

has taken all that life has to throw at

her and (to borrow a line used in the

recent Elton John fi lm Rocketman )

she is still ... well, sometimes she’s

not standing, sometimes she’s

actually falling over on stage. But

she’s still battling on many fronts,

living in California, divorced from

her third husband, Sid Luft (Rufus

Sewell), and in an acrimonious

dispute with him about the children.

When the London residency is

mooted, she jumps at the chance of

solid earnings and a restorative blast

of adoration from British admirers.

But there’s no chance of taking

the children with her, and so she

manages loneliness with booze and

Ro

So

int

un

wi

In

of

Mi

do

fi g

ch

an

wi

is p

wi

)

en.

of

ast

.

d

Judy Garland in

1967, two years

before she died

▲ In Renée Zellweger’s relaxed and

personal performance, Garland is a

resilient star still standing – mostly –

and ready to take on life’s challenges

PHOTOGRAPH: DAVID HINDLEY/AP

Zellweger’s walk

and stance cleverly

conveys someone

who is only in her 40s,

but who feels older

Judy

Telluride fi lm festival

★★★☆☆

An Offi cer and a Spy

Venice fi lm festival

★★★★☆

Film review

Polanski seeks

parallels in

case of unfairly

accused man

Xan Brooks

Alfred Dreyfus was a Jewish captain

in the French general staff , a man of

spotless reputation and character

accused of selling military secrets

to the Germans. Convicted on

duff evidence, he was exiled to

Devil’s Island off the African coast,

railroaded and martyred, like Jesus,

or Peter, or possibly Roman Polanski,

who has spotted certain parallels

between his situation and that of

Dreyfus and has made a movie that

may encourage us to do likewise.

I’ll leave it to fi ner legal minds

than mine to locate possible holes

in Polanski’s thesis. The fi lm itself

is handsome and involving and

exposes the institutionalised

anti semitism of 1890s France and

builds to the publication of Émile

Zola’s J’Accuse , an open letter to the

French president that lifted the lid

on the aff air.

Polanski keeps Dreyfus (Louis

Garrel) largely in the background and

focuses instead on Colonel Picquart,

played by The Artist’s Jean Dujardin.

Picquart has been promoted to lead

the offi ce of military intelligence,

inheriting the mess left by his

syphilitic predecessor. The place, he

can see, is rotten to the core, in thrall

to men such as the worm-like Major

Henry (Gr égory Gadebois).

Set up complete, An Offi cer and a

Spy covers the ground with an iron-

heeled tread, through smoke-fi lled

rooms where burly men sit and talk.

Around halfway through, Picquart

takes himself off to sit wearily in

a church. He could do with some

quiet; the fi lm could as well.

At 86, Polanski has abandoned

the air of mischief that characterised

the likes of Rosemary’s Baby. All

the same, An Offi cer and a Spy is a

subtly devastating portrait of the

French general staff , with a stench

of establishment sulphur that recalls

Chinatown. The longer you look at it,

the more impressive it grows.

RELEASED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws