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| Scene from Judy (2019) |
There's an old adage in show business: the show MUST go on. No matter what's happening around you, if you're feeling the least bit timid, a performer puts on a show and entertains the crowd who paid handsomely to see them. That is the familiar crux of director Rupert Goold's biopic Judy, which pits one of Hollywood's most famous and tragic careers into a sympathetic lens, trying to understand what kept her going. With drug addiction and family problems spiraling out of control like her wrecked hotel suite, the story finds her backstage in London, doing everything in her power to keep going on. For as much as this follows conventional paths of a music biopic, there's something to be said for Renee Zellwegger's brittle performance as Judy Garland, whose tearful demeanor makes the many musical numbers more triumphant and saves this. For as much as it leans too heavily on conventions, one can't deny that Garland was a performer until the end, leaving the audience wanting even more when she herself had nothing left to give. It's the tragedy of art, but also the reality of Hollywood's gross past when it came to how it treated its female talent.
