Set in '30s London, the film involves stage actors and their experiences with love and revenge. Read more
| Starring | Annette Bening, Jeremy Irons, Juliet Stevenson, Miriam Margolyes |
|---|---|
| Director | István Szabó |
| Genres | Audio Descriptive, Drama |
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Set in '30s London, the film involves stage actors and their experiences with love and revenge.
| Starring | Annette Bening, Jeremy Irons, Juliet Stevenson, Miriam Margolyes, Bruce Greenwood |
|---|---|
| Director | István Szabó |
| Studio | COLUMBIA TRI-STAR HOME VIDEO |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 40 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Audio Descriptive, Drama |
| Language | English, English Audio Description |
| Hearing-impaired | English |
| Subtitles | English, Hindi |
| Released | DVD: 10 Dec 2007 Production year: 2004 |
| Format | DVD |
Produced by a Canadian immigrant (Robert Lantos), directed by a Hungarian (Istvan Szabo), but written by a Brit (Ronald Harwood), based on a novel by Somerset Maugham and set in and... read more »
You don't have to be a fan of Annette Bening (or Jeremy Irons) to enjoy this high-spirited tale of theatrical life - or rather, Julia Lambert's life, to be specific.
Based on a novella by my one of my all-time favorite authors, W. Somerset Maugham, Being Julia is sort of like All About Eve, except not as stage-y. It's a period piece, taking place in England in the '30s, where burnt-out Diva Extraordinaire Julia Lambert is moaning and groaning about her tedious, boring life to anyone who will listen, including her weathered and weary husband (Irons, drolly pipe-puffing his way through the film as only he could). She meets a young, handsome, American fan/opportunist (Shaun Evans, highly effective) and together they rekindle Julia's lust for life.
This is just the first half hour - it gets better and more and more outrageous (and of course more FUN) as it goes on. Needless to say, you won't be bored; in fact, I left the theater smiling and shaking my head.
Sometimes when a book is good (as Somerset Maugham?s Theatre is) it?s as well to wonder why a narrative that depends on a great deal of internalised feeling could be expected to make a good film: so much subtlety is lost in broadening the characterisations (like changing the character of Tom from an aspirational suburban Londoner into an American) and motivations that it scarcely seems worthwhile. Read the book.
That said, this isn?t a hopeless effort, in fact it?s a moderately enjoyable film. Annette Bening is surprisingly good at the arch stageyness of her character, and Jeremy Irons (a predictable and unappealing actor) is well-cast. The standard of production values is high, and the simplified if vulgarised story is clear enough.
But it?s also a bit fluffy, and the direction is unexpectedly pedestrian: there are, for example, far too many ?reaction? shots, and a good deal too much unmotivated laughter to clumsily show how much people are supposed to be enjoying themselves. The climactic scene where Julia upstages her rival is hopeless anachronistic and unconvincing, and elsewhere too the period detail is inaccurate, for example in the grooming and teeth of Juliet Stevenson?s character.
There are worse ways to spend an hour and a half, but a lot of better ones too.
The screen adaptation of Christopher Priest's novel The Prestige, which follows a battle between two rival magicians for each other's secrets, should do well at the box office- after all it has both Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale on board. But there is another magician pairing studio execs plan to unleash on the film-going public and the success of this one is a lot harder to determine. The magicians in question are Robert Webb and David Mitchell, who fans of cult British comedy Peep Show will Read more