Canada/UK 2004
Director: Istvan Szabo
Score: **
BEING JULIA is the kind of lavish glamorous European period piece that Canadian producer Robert Lantos (SUNSHINE, ARAFAT, THE STATEMENT) is famous for. Once again in collaboration with director Istvan Szabo, best known for his Oscar winning MEPHISTO and the harrowing follow-up the year after COLONEL REDL, the duo have come up with the kind of film, a Canadian co-production with the U.K. that will surely be selected as the opening night Gala for the Toronto International Film Festival. Surely the hype would be enough to secure sufficient publicity. Oddly enough, BEING JULIA is based on the novel THEATRE by British novelist W. Somerset Maugham, whose stories are best translated into small low-budget films like QUARTET and ENCORE.

In almost all of Somerset Maugham’s stories, marriage has never been portrayed as a successful institution. In BEING JULIA, Julia Lambert (Annette Bening) is bored with acting on stage and with her husband, the handsome Michael Gosselyn (Jeremy Irons). She soon finds herself falling for a young fan, American Tom Fennell (Shaun Evans) who brings back a purpose to her life until she finds herself playing a supporting role to Tom’s new flame Avie (Lucy Punch) both in real life and on stage.

The props, music, wardrobe and make-up departments have a field day with the film’s setting of 30’s London.  From the indoor lighting of the theatre where Julia performs to the scenic Jersey where she vacations, there is no expense spared to get the atmosphere right. Szabo has staged his acts meticulously like the initial scene where the lights slowly brighten to reveal a full theatre audience in non-stop applause. Producer Lantos has assembled a stellar international cast that includes Canadians Bruce Greenwood, Maury Chaykin, Sheila McCarthy and Brits Miriam Margolyes, Juliet Stevenson, Rita Tushingham, Michael Gambon and the surprisingly good young Tom Sturridge as Julia’s son, Roger.

Though scenarist Ronald Harwood has been known for many famous works like the play THE DRESSER and for films like THE STATEMENT and Polanski’s THE PIANIST, there are careless flaws in the script.  One is Julia’s imagined mentor Jimmie Langton (Gambon) who advises her to open her legs for her new found virginal love.  Her son, Roger appearing soon in the film then comes as quite a surprise.  But there are a few delicate touches that work well like Lord Charles (Greenwood) confession that he cannot return Julia’s love because he plays for the other team.

In all of Maugham’s and Szabo’s films, performance is key to the success of the story-telling. Despite the fantastic casting, most of the actors have nothing much to do but appear in one scene or two (Chaykin, Tushingham and McCarthy).  But the greatest burden falls on Bening’s performance. Bening succeeds well in her portrayal of the fragile, sometimes irrational and spirited actress, but when she is required to mastermind a revenge on those that wronged her, she fails to show the strength of a determined schemer. Like the annoying wife in AMERICAN BEAUTY, that role is duplicated here in all her silly giggles and unsettling bitchiness. Lucy Punch playing Avie is also a tittering mess. The males Irons, Greenwood and Gambon fair better. In the press notes, Szabo discusses the essentials of close-ups. It pays off here, especially with actor Tom Sturridge whose facial expressions tell exactly what he thinks during the many stages his mother is going through. Szabo goes a bit overboard with the tactic in the climatic scene when close-ups follow one after each other revealing which of Julia acquaintances are enemies or supporters.

BEING JULIA ultimately fails to satisfy. Beautiful to look at and nostalgic enough to delight lovers of the British past, BEING JULIA finally comes across as over-sweetened eye candy.

Review by Gilbert Seah.