Being Julia
Being Julia (2004)
★★★ / ★★★★
Julia Lambert (played brilliantly by Annette Bening) was a great theater actress. She was so great, she could not stop acting even though she was not on strage. Most people around her saw her life as nothing but glamorous and fans craved to be around her either for the fame, money, or to advance their careers. This made her bitter and depressed; not even her husband (Jeremy Irons) was sensitive enough to realize that she was overworked and on the verge of breakdown. So when she met a significantly younger American admirer (Shaun Evans) who seemed to genuinely care for her, she decided to take a risk and allowed herself to fall in love with him. I thought the movie took its time to build the rage inside of Julia and it only really started to pay off toward its halfway point. Furthermore, the appearance of Julia’s dead mentor (Michael Gambon) was a big distraction for me, especially when the film did not establish their relationship prior. Although I have to say that the second half was very engaging because we eventually saw who the characters really were and their true intentions. Despite Julia’s sometimes tiresome histrionics, I came to understand why she was angry. Everyone believed that she was on the top of her game but at the end of the day she was the one looking at herself in the mirror and noticing her age show and health deteriorate. She did not know how to deal with the fear of becoming considered as past her prime and lacking a genuine support system did not help her increasingly desperate situation. The only true person in her life was her son (Tom Sturridge–quickly becoming one of my favorite actors) but he was always away. I was in love with the scene when he knocked on her mother’s door, found her crying, and made the decision to share something really personal with her–something that even I am not sure I can share with my parents no matter how close we are. The implications in that scene were rewarding because they were open to interpretation. That scene was special because the look and feel of that scene was a nice contrast to the scenes involving the lies and deceit of showbiz. The last few scenes impressed me because it truly encapsulated Julia’s perspective–the theater was when she felt home and and the real world was just an acting class. It was so bittersweet and I finally saw how strong she was even though she could turn on and off her tears at the drop of a hat. “Being Julia,” based on the novel “Theatre” by W. Somerset Maugham and directed by István Szabó, sometimes felt elegantly cold but it was eventually able to open up and show its warmth. It had strong performances especially by Bening and Sturridge and I wished that the two had more scenes that explored the crucial mother-son relationship.
Sunshine Cleaning
Sunshine Cleaning (2008)
★★★ / ★★★★
Amy Adams stars in “Sunshine Cleaning,” a story about a woman who was in desperate financial situations so she took up a job, along with her sister played by Emily Blunt, cleaning up after crime scenes and suicides. I expected this movie to be more on the comedic side than the dramatic side but it was a nice surprise because it ended up to be a good balance of both. I really got a sense of Adams’ strong female character who, despite her flaws, was willing to go on when life throws an unsuspecting blow to her upward momentum. It was really easy for me to root for her because she was fighting various elements: her rocky relationship with her sister, her son (Jason Spevack) who kept getting into trouble in school because of his strange behaviors, her fling with her high school boyfriend (Steve Zahn) who happened to be married, and her insecurities concerning her thoughts about peaking in high school as her classmates went on to get married and live in nice houses. The only negative I can think of concerning the film was I thought it could have had more scenes to strengthen the two daughters’ relationship with their father (Alan Arkin). Although he was a nice guy, I didn’t feel as though I knew him as well, which was not a good thing because the film’s crux was the way the family as a unit helped each other out when circumstances got difficult. In a way, “Sunshine Cleaning” somewhat worked as a slice-of-life picture where the audiences are transported into the family’s lives and left things in a not-so-perfect way. There were many bittersweet scenes involving the death of their mother and darkly comic scenes when they had to clean up blood and guts off the walls. Directed by Christine Jeffs and written by Megan Holley, “Sunshine Cleaning” wears its indie feel on its sleeve but it was strong enough to go beyond the quirks and damaged characters. In a strange way, it was quite empowering.
