DVD: Julia (Zonca, 2008)

I needed to let this film settle for a while, even after watching it on two consecutive days, so that I could get a firm grasp on how I felt about it. It’s one of the most frustrating relationships I’ve had with a film in a long time because it is so evenly divided into things it nails and things it bombs; and both are extreme cases: when it’s good, it is a masterpiece like nothing I thought this cast and crew were capable of; and when it’s bad, it’s filthy, formulaic, Hollywood-grade mediocrity and stupidity. First of all, before all else, this is essentially a nice, long vehicle for Swinton to show off (much like There Will Be Blood (or any movie?) is for Daniel Day-Lewis), and she gives easily the best performance by an actress in 2008. She undergoes a similar ‘uglification’ that Charlize Theron did for Monster. Both are prim and proper, elegant, classy women who we think we have pinned down in terms of what they are capable of, and then they go off and shed their make-up and their manners, evolving into despicable white trash. But more than their aesthetic transformations, they were able to be convincing in their looks. I could easily be convinced – or convince myself – that Swinton was completely shit-faced during the filming of the scenes that take place in the film’s first quarter. She’s a raging, selfish, slutty lunatic that is impossibly pathetic, yet still sympathetic. There is not a moment in the film’s final half where I wasn’t cheering for the situation to pan out in Julia’s favor, as morally reprehensible as that situation is. Criticisms of the film question why the viewer should care about such a “hateful” woman, and the answer is that all of her motives are genuine and human, and can be linked to every person’s innate pursuit of success.

The problem, though, is that only some of the completely idiotic decisions and shortsightedness that Julia exhibits has any credence, while most are glaring plot contrivances. Forgetting to wear a mask at all times in front of the boy, leaving Tom alone in the desert, and sleeping with a sketchy man the night before she is home free for her payoff make up just a small fraction of the poor decisions that serve, primarily, to lengthen the film (which is not necessarily too long, but could have been filled with more worthy developments). It only deadens the significant tension that the film has earned when we watch Julia drive around looking for Tom in the desert for a few minutes; we know she will find him, and it doesn’t progress any element of the plot. The initial suspension of disbelief that the viewer is asked to partake in when Julia accepts Elena’s offer is useful, but often a crutch for these latter moves. The worst things is that these decisions don’t read as Julia’s, but as Zonca’s.

Despite Swinton’s tour de force, the film’s most astonishing scene belongs to Kate del Castillo’s Elena. Bitch wants her baby.