"Being Julia," as exploration of an aging actress, is a simplistic story that doesn't quite deliver the goods.
Annette Bening's portrayal of Julia was supposed to be triumphant, but I found her trying. As with many other movies that follow the lives of actors and their highs and lows, I found the characters to be wholly unworthy of my sympathy or attention. Normally I stay away from movies about actors for two reasons: they're self-serving and they typically have the lead acting irrational, over-emoting and behaving unstable. While Bening was not quite as far out in left field as most lead characters in this genre, she demonstrated a fairly wide swing in shallow displays of emotions, and without any real character development, it's impossible for me to feel any compassion for these poor-rich people with rich people's problems.
I watched the clock through the whole movie trying to gauge when the action would finally climax and the end would come. The only reason I kept watching was that I hoped that there would be a turning point when I really applauded our protagonist, but it never came. I found everyone in the story basically got what they deserved--which wasn't much, by the way. So much for the real villain getting his comeuppance - it doesn't happen.
The saving grace in this movie was Jeremy Irons, whom I don't normally care for as an actor. He was smooth and appropriate in his role, unsettled by his wacky wife but still holding his course--it's all for the money, honey.
Not worth the rental price of the DVD.
Annette Bening's portrayal of Julia was supposed to be triumphant, but I found her trying. As with many other movies that follow the lives of actors and their highs and lows, I found the characters to be wholly unworthy of my sympathy or attention. Normally I stay away from movies about actors for two reasons: they're self-serving and they typically have the lead acting irrational, over-emoting and behaving unstable. While Bening was not quite as far out in left field as most lead characters in this genre, she demonstrated a fairly wide swing in shallow displays of emotions, and without any real character development, it's impossible for me to feel any compassion for these poor-rich people with rich people's problems.
I watched the clock through the whole movie trying to gauge when the action would finally climax and the end would come. The only reason I kept watching was that I hoped that there would be a turning point when I really applauded our protagonist, but it never came. I found everyone in the story basically got what they deserved--which wasn't much, by the way. So much for the real villain getting his comeuppance - it doesn't happen.
The saving grace in this movie was Jeremy Irons, whom I don't normally care for as an actor. He was smooth and appropriate in his role, unsettled by his wacky wife but still holding his course--it's all for the money, honey.
Not worth the rental price of the DVD.