Being Julia (2004)
Julia Lambert is a true diva: beautiful, talented, weathly and famous. She has it all - including a devoted husband who has mastermined her brilliant career - but after years of shining in the spotlight she begins to suffer from a severe case of boredom and longs for something new and exciting to put the twinkle back in her eye. Julia finds exactly what she's looking for in a handsome young American fan, but it isn't long before the novelty fling adds a few more sparks than she was hoping for. Fortuately for her, this surprise twist in the plot will thrust her back into the greatest role of her life.
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Simply Perfect
Simply A Masterpiece
Highly Overrated But Still Good
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
For those who love the theatre (an unfortunately increasingly shrinking group for unfortunately shrinking performance venues) this film is like candy, centering around an aging actress who needs a new challenge of some kind, who is tired of playing the same old script to adoring fans, who still wants to grow and perhaps find some romance in her life.Being Julia could be standard "chick flick" material, but because Director Szabo has surrounded perfectly superb Bening with an exciting supporting cast and lavished the screen with lush period sets and handed his actors a literate script (with a well-deserved comeuppance for a deserving victim), the film is great fun, perhaps reflecting a theory that many of us wear masks of our own designing, that Being Julia is as complex as attempting to being ourselves.
Spectacular, seductive, powerful and impressive. A beautiful script and an extraordinary cast. Annette Bening in one of most remarkable creation. A magnificent show, with taste of lost era, with strong recipes and joy of play. A film about mirror of life. Art, love, seduction and cruel games as ingredients of a cake with a very intelligent flavor in which cinnamon an pepper, hot chili and cream are ingredients. A chocolate cake. For mind and for the chance to find a intelligent story about the basic things of marriage and every competition. "All about Eve" and Shakespeare comedies in same package.So, must see it!
"Being Julia" is an old-fashioned love song to the theat-ah and the divas who are to be found there. But even more, it's a love letter to Annette Bening, who plays the title diva in an Oscar-nominated performance that makes you wish the film would go on forever.This is pretty lightweight stuff, but Bening is sensational. You can tell she's having a blast, and her enthusiasm for the project and her character is contagious. Nothing else in the film matters except for her, which is as it should be. Certainly her Julia would have it no other way.Grade: A-
I haven't read Somerset Maugham's novel entitled Theatre which the film was adapted into this film. While the film has a first rate cast, I kept thinking that the role of Julia Lambert could have been equally brilliantly played by Juliet Stevenson CBE who was playing Edie, Julia's long-time personal assistant. Miriam Margolyes OBE again plays a lesbian producer in this film who loves Julia almost as much as Julia loves herself. She is constantly followed by her old acting teacher played by Sir Michael Gambon. The film is about Julia who needs to find herself again. She finds love in a younger lover and wanted to consummate with an old friend who kindly tells her that he's playing for the other side. Jeremy Irons plays her husband and producer. The couple are quite a complement to each other. Julia retreats to visit her mother played by the divine Rosemary Harris and her Aunt Carrie played by Rita Tushingham. But still, Annette Bening does a superb job in making you feel for Julia Lambert.