The original play that inspired Judy, penned for a 2005 debut by Peter Quilter, was rather more appropriately titled ‘End of the Rainbow’. This is not to relate film and play alike to some pot of gold but instead to note the sobriety with which each characterises the later life of a star who was driven to anything but. Judy may, semantically, lay the ground for heraldic tribute to Garland as icon but it is a film that works best when it explores the desperation of a mother at sea. The tone is somber, give or take a handful of glitzy highlights, and the aftertaste embittered by a distressingly emotional crux. At the film’s core, Renée Zellweger gives the most electrically all-in performance of her career.
Having proved herself a scene stealing, eccentric comic in last year’s Crazy Rich Asians, Awkwafina is a revelation in Lulu Wang’s intrinsically more somber new drama The Farewell. Humorous beats are perhaps inevitable where the star is concerned – such is the human condition after all – but here come deftly woven with the poignance of a funerary tone. By the coming of Wang’s final stimulating shots, there can be little doubt that The Farewell will stand as one of 2019’s most moving features. It’s another well chosen triumph for hitmakers A24.
The ongoing ripples of Alfonso Cuarón’s stunning, technologically unprecedented, success with 2013 Oscar dominee Gravity pummel through James Gray’s latest thought provoker. Breathtaking vistas expand across the picture’s wide screen, with pitch perfect photorealism – boosted by bona fide moon surface footage in some scenes – captured on sumptuously grainy 35mm film. Amid the deep space in which Ad Astra is set, Gray has lens-eyes only for his leading man. Intense close ups force viewers right into the depressive depths of Brad Pitt’s fully engaged eyes, seeking answers, hope, resolution even, but finding despair alone. It’s a pity Gray and co-writer Ethan Gross’ arduously moribund narration rarely shuts up long enough to let us appreciate the fact.
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