BEING JULIA
Piffle!
That's the word that came to mind while watching this Annette Bening vehcle BEING JULIA, about a middle=aged stage diva, for whom, we are constantly reminded, the theatre is life and her life is theatre -all hopelessly intermeshed.
The film is good enough Friday night entertainment for the middle-aged crowd (of which I sam one), but either as a serious (or comic) treatment of the relationship between life and art, it offers only cliches. Maybe because the plays she's in seem so dreadfuly banal. the lives of the characters seem so too.
As fr Annette B ening,s Oscar nominated performance - she certainly thrws hersef into in, as if she smells Oscar material. And, she, and the rest of the cast seem to be having a better time than they would in a Merchant-Ivory film. But just as her performance in AMERICAN BEAUTY was somewhat cartoonish, and somewhat out of step with the rest of the film, so too here, she does well with the revenge on stage scene, but seems inconsistent with the rest. Do we laugh or cry? Does she know the difference? Does it make a difference?
That's the word that came to mind while watching this Annette Bening vehcle BEING JULIA, about a middle=aged stage diva, for whom, we are constantly reminded, the theatre is life and her life is theatre -all hopelessly intermeshed.
The film is good enough Friday night entertainment for the middle-aged crowd (of which I sam one), but either as a serious (or comic) treatment of the relationship between life and art, it offers only cliches. Maybe because the plays she's in seem so dreadfuly banal. the lives of the characters seem so too.
As fr Annette B ening,s Oscar nominated performance - she certainly thrws hersef into in, as if she smells Oscar material. And, she, and the rest of the cast seem to be having a better time than they would in a Merchant-Ivory film. But just as her performance in AMERICAN BEAUTY was somewhat cartoonish, and somewhat out of step with the rest of the film, so too here, she does well with the revenge on stage scene, but seems inconsistent with the rest. Do we laugh or cry? Does she know the difference? Does it make a difference?
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