Being Julia
(c) ajmalouin 2006
(Rating: 2 by Al)
(2004—Istavan Szabo—Canada/USA/Hungry/UK.) (1 hr 44. Rated R for some sexuality.)
An aging and bored actress (Annette Bening!) in the London theatre of the 1930s looks around for something to rekindle her enthusiasm. She finds it in a young man. Being a young man, however, the young man (Shaun Evans) is actually interested in much younger women. He plays the aging actress along to further his own acting ambitions, then dumps her for an upcoming and very tasty stage starlet. During a well-thought out revenge, the public humiliation the aging actress gives the stage starlet is the high point of her acting career. Even Bening’s loving son, who has accused her of acting during Real Life, is won over and stunned by the starlet’s humiliation. We find Bening’s character to be a petulant study in self-absorption, yet we take her side as we discover the depth of her stage-acting abilities. Annette Bening would have won the Academy Award for “Best Actress” for her acting in this film, were it not for Hilary Swank’s performance in that boxing movie that came out during the same year. (P.S. To give you some small idea that we Really do know of what we write, this review was originally written on Monday, 21 February 2005.)