Judy (2019)
When the mythical Pandora Box finally opened, all the evil virtues flew out, leaving only hope. Well, one can assume that when everything is gone, and one is down and out, there is always hope for one to start over.
But then, conversely, one could ask why hope is there in the first place among unsavoury traits like jealousy and gluttony. Is it that sometimes, even hope gives a false sense of surety that masks the situation of the ground? Could hope, after the initial useful jumpstart progress to some kind of obsession? The dream to excel becomes so essential that one forgets to slumber. One needs to sleep to dream but then what ensues is just a nightmare when several self-defeating means are deployed to hope against hope to keep the dream, which is now only a delusion, alive.
‘Judy’ is the story of a child prodigy, Judy Garland, at the tail end of her sad life. Coming from a showbiz family, she and her two sisters were in a vaudeville called Gumm Sisters. Judy skyrocketed to stardom at an early age. (who doesn’t know Dorothy Gale in Wizard of Oz?). In the dog eat dog world of Hollywood, staying afloat is no easy feat. Drugs and intoxicants, which kept her stay relevant through the years, finally reared their ugly heads in her later years. With poor business management, bad life choices and spiralling legal fees, Judy had to fight a losing battle to win custody of her two children.
Her labile temperament and frequent absences from shows made it even more problematic.
I thought Rene Zellweger gave a stellar performance as a 40-something Judy as she tried to redeem herself as a singer in the London clubs before her demise due to barbiturate overdose.
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