Always Chasing Rainbows

There are few more tragic stories in Hollywood history than that of Judy Garland. The exploitation and conditioning of the young Frances Gumm by MGM, forced into the studio-crafted “girl next door” persona of Judy Garland and all the dietary and leisure restrictions, not to mention over-work that went along with it, irrevocably damaged and ultimately shortened the life of one of the great talents the cinema has seen. It can be difficult to watch her movies now, knowing what the studio did to her, facilitating her lifelong addiction to prescription drugs and cultivating severe body image issues through constantly criticizing her appearance. But then, her charisma and screen power always shines through and wins you over; the world would undoubtedly be a poorer place without her legacy.

Since her death in 1969, it’s been in somewhat questionable taste to make a movie about Judy Garland’s life, especially when such an undertaking would inevitably be profiting off of her misery at the hands of the very system making said movie possible. However it’s framed, Judy is a renewed exploitation of Garland -whether it’s respectful and celebratory enough alongside this is what matters. And this movie, from BBC Films and director Rupert Goold, is respectful –in spite of the controversy in making it without the permission of Garland’s surviving family (Liza Minnelli went so far as to denounce the film expressly). It’s a movie that is sincere, but also largely shallow.

The plot concerns the last years of Garlands’ life, specifically her five-week run of shows at London’s Talk of the Town club in early 1969, condensing a few other notable episodes into that timespan. Directly, it’s based on Peter Quilter’s West End play End of the Rainbow, and its theatrical conventions are readily apparent in the film, not only through the hiring of a theatre director for the adaptation, but through the limited setting and staging, and common narrative devices of stage productions, such as a structure that couples Judy’s worst moments with flashbacks to her childhood and a consistent arc focussed on her children to give the story a sense of completion. Because of this and Goold’s lack of cinematic experience the film has little visual spontaneity. Even scenes meant to be as radiant as an impassioned performance or a flashback to the set of The Wizard of Oz are flat and mundane-looking. The set design is often static, the present sequences are afraid to use much colour outside of Garland’s wardrobe choices (1960s England wasn’t THAT drab). The general production quality itself is on the level of a cable TV movie or miniseries -a less damning distinction in this age than in decades past it’s true, but one that still warrants mentioning.

The film doesn’t shy away from the realities of Garland’s personality and demons however. Her notoriously difficult habits of turning up late or impaired for performances is seen here vividly, as is her abrasive attitude under stress, her irresponsibility, and her discomfort with her public past. That love/hate relationship with celebrity in general is fascinating, and Renee Zellweger pulls most of it off modestly. She not only looks the part, but clearly put a lot of effort into Garlands’ poise, her accent, and her sensitivities. Watching her embody Garland is probably the best part of the movie, and even her musical numbers, where she could never stand a chance of replicating the voice of such a one-of-a-kind singer, she performs gracefully in her own way.

But Darci Shaw deserves some credit too as the young Judy, those scenes in the 30’s doing a great job accentuating the stress stardom put her under and the cruel and controlling power of a seemingly omnipresent Louis B. Mayer, moments away in any of his scenes from something truly disturbing. Scenes like her flirtation with Mickey Rooney destined to go nowhere due to the mandated images of both young stars, and the retribution for an act of defiance; her inability to be allowed rest and the constant pills left for her by stuido assistants, it paints a detestable image of how Hollywood treated its child stars. The trauma carries through to the present sequences, but the transition parallels are often tenuous and the story noticeably not as immediate.

This movie has a lot in common with another recent BBC Films production that capitalized on major American stars of the 1930s performing in London at the end of their career, Stan & Ollie. Both films deal with the relative has-been status of their stars while also showcasing their lingering impact (Judy does this rather bluntly with one sequence where she visits the home of an adoring gay couple to remind us of her status as a gay icon). Both films address turbulent personal relationships and financial situations necessitating the journey abroad, and both films stretch or simplify the truth for the sake of cinematic convention. And I think the conventionality of this storytelling works against the film, or at least the banality of how it’s presented. Laurel & Hardy is one thing, but Judy Garland’s story deserves to be told in a more interesting way.

Like countless other biopics, you know Judy won’t go so far as to show its’ stars’ death, but the film is obviously building towards “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from its opening scene on the set of The Wizard of Oz. And when it arrives, it’s blisteringly sentimental, and its effectiveness will depend entirely on your tolerance for that sort of thing -I’ll admit it won me over a little, but I do love that song. It is undeniably touching ultimately, demonstrating a sincerity with this tribute on the 80^th anniversary of the film for which Garland is most beloved. But you leave Judy wanting more -more of Garlands’ life and career and personality. By focussing on such a specific time and place, it can’t encapsulate the magnitude of Judy Garland, the human and icon, the triumphs and struggles she endured even after her child star phase (there’s more than a films’ worth of drama in the making of A Star is Born alone) -just like that Hitchcock movie that only covered the making of Psycho. I said that her story was one of Hollywood’s most tragic, but it’s also one of Hollywood’s most fascinating, even inspiring. Judy might do to remember that.

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