BEING JULIA

Being Julia is, to put it bluntly, a showcase film for the talents of Annette Bening.

It allows her to command the (onscreen) stage like a force of nature and allows her to tap into every emotion she can muster. She’s laughing! She’s screaming! She’s crying! As such, it’s a great acting vehicle, but not an especially great film.

Bening stars as Julia Lambert, a once-celebrated stage actress in late-1930s London, who’s suffering a bit of a mid-life career crisis. Her husband, Michael (Jeremy Irons), owns the theater company employing Julia, and suggests they launch another piece when her current plays ends its run. She’s totally against the idea and ready to throw in the acting towel, until a sudden burst of revitalizing energy surges through her veins in the form of a dashing, young admirer named Tom (Shaun Evans). Tom’s an American interested in the entertainment business, but even more interested in bedding Julia – the famous object of his ardent desire. Soon, Julia’s a new woman. She’s motivated, passionate and literally delirious thanks to her secret affair with Tom and his veritable worship at her feet. But just as life seems destined to be glorious and a career resurgence waits on the horizon, things change. Motivations become clear, indiscretions are revealed and the situation is turned on its ear. What began as a romance suddenly sours and turns into something much darker.

Directed by István Szabó and adapted from the M. Somerset Maugham novel, Theater, Being Julia boasts an amusing array of characters but doesn’t give them (save for Julia herself) much to do. The film’s tone is somewhat uneven, and its rather mundane first half pales in comparison to its deliciously vindictive final act. Many of the characters – like Bruce Greenwood’s Lord Charles or Juliet Stevenson’s Evie – seem to serve redundant purposes. How many confidantes does Julia really need, after all? Even Jeremy Irons, who finally gets to play a fun, lighthearted role and seems to relish it, is largely wasted.

For her part, Bening is very good…but not necessarily Oscar-bound. Julia is an actress with an insatiable need to be noticed. She’s a gr-AHN-nd d-AH-me of the THEA-TAH!. Her life is an exercise in exclamation points and she seems permanently set on eleven. Bening, therefore, is forced to play much of the film over-the-top (think: John Lithgow on Third Rock From the Sun), and occasionally it borders on caricature. Julia becomes almost cartoonish. Her accent also tends to drift in and out at times, which is mildly distracting.

Fans of Bening should definitely give Julia a look, if for no other reason than she’s in almost every single frame and looks radiant throughout. But for the casual moviegoer, this one can easily wait for video.