"Being Julia" is a pleasant period piece set in the 30s, best know for Annette Bening's Oscar nominated performance. Besides her acclaimed turn as British stage diva Julia Lambert, the film offers a few other high points: some good casting choices for leads (Jeremy Irons) and minor characters (Micheal Gambon, Miriam Margolyes, young Tom Sturridge), an effective, beautiful reconstruction of 1938 London (rebuilt in Budapest), beautiful costumes as well, and an original and clever use of Micheal Gambon's character, Julia's mentor Jimmie Langdon, constantly appearing as a ghost who dialogs with Julia. Still, in the film there are many things I don't like. First of all, comparing to the original novel by W.S.Maugham the characters of Micheal and Lord Charles are somewhat trivialized, especially the latter. In Maugham Micheal was one of the most amusing characters - so silly and vain, but also in his way a good fellow; in the film, despite a good performance from Jeremy Irons, has not this richness. With Lord Charles is even worse. The casting of Bruce Greenwood is inexplicable: he is at least 10 years to young - left alone Canadian!! - and in my opinion there was no need to make his character gay. The "attepmted seduction" between Julia and him was priceless in the novel, not quite so in the film. The "on stage revenge" scene was trivialized as well: in the book it was subtle and funny, in the movie, with all those clumsy laughs and big sneezes, it turns out a bit kitschy. As for the music, the soundtrack sounded a little too jazzy for that time and place. I didn't like how it fitted. In particular the use of "Smoke gets in your eyes" seemed to me totally inappropriate in the last scene. Yes, I know that song was written the thirties, but to me it sounded so "fifties", and so "Platters"!! More, the lyrics have nothing to do with the meaning that moment (Julia's final triumph) has in the story. I mean, they say quite the opposite. On the whole, Being Julia is a slight disappointment. A must see for Bening's fans, a nice period comedy-drama for all the others, but S.Maugham's fan could be disappointed.
Review of Being Julia
