It's not often that you can watch a movie starring Tilda Swinton without appreciating the acting skills of Tilda Swinton. Julia doesn't change that. It gives Swinton a lead role that may well rank up there with her very best. It is just a shame that the film around that performance isn’t as good as her work deserves, although I have already noticed that I am seriously in the minority with this opinion.
Julia (Swinton, of course) is an alcoholic about to lose everything. Her job, her home, maybe even her life if she keeps blacking out and ending up in the bed of whatever stranger is most responsive to her. Things look set to change, however, when a woman asks for help to get her son (Aidan Gould) back in her life. The young boy is apparently in the custody of family on his father’s side, and Julia can get a big payday if she effectively kidnaps him to return him home. You can imagine how well this plan unfolds, but each extra “wrinkle” ends up changing Julia, perhaps changing her into a better person.
Director Erick Zonca, who also co-wrote the screenplay with a number of different collaborators, has a good handle on where he wants this cinematic journey to take us, and also where he wants it to take the main character. Unfortunately, many of the scenes in between the more impressive moments don’t work half as well as they should. For all her great work, Swinton is left adrift in situations that feel messy and pointless. I get that the style of the film may be signifying the very messy and unhealthy mental state of Julia, but it’s difficult to sit through without becoming frustrated and/or bored, especially when those scenes make up so much of a movie that runs for just over two and a quarter hours.
In fact, let me put it this way; the film only ever hits the heights it aims for in the scenes that focus on Swinton and Gould. Everything else feels like white noise, with the exception of a scene or two stolen by Saul Rubinek.
I started this review by praising Swinton, I have JUST mentioned how good she and Gould are together, and that’s all I have to do. Julia is a weak film that is lucky enough to be hung on some excellent performances. There’s nothing else to really praise here, despite those involved trying to use some thriller genre tropes to help disguise what may have worked better as a more straightforward character study. It’s particularly telling that the very best moments here could be removed from the film and displayed as a short, with very little or no context, and they would work just as well. All thanks to Swinton, Gould, and Rubinek.
Hugely disappointing in many ways, but absolutely worth your time if you are a fan of the lead. The good doesn’t manage to outweigh the bad, but it helps to raise my final rating to absolutely average.
5/10
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