Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Renee Zellwegar, Jessie Buckley, Finn Wittrock, Rufus Sewell, Gemma-Leah Deveraux, Michael Gambon, Bella Ramsey, Andy Nyman, Gaia Weiss, Philippe Spall, Fenella Woolgar, Royce Pierreson, Phil Dunster, Darci Shaw, Diana Alexandra Pocol, John Dagleish, Natasha Powell, Lucy Russell, Tom Durant Pritchard, Tim Ahern.
Somewhere over the rainbow remains a memory of a star, an icon whose greatest screen role defined the age, of childhood and the abuse of power reigned over them by studios and their owners, whose character in the Wizard of Oz became a by word for the acceptance of others, and to whom a voice was given that few have been able to touch since.
Judy Garland was taken before her time but it was her final, brief shining moments that have courted the enigma and the respect of her fans, she may always be Dorothy Gale on screen but for those who saw her psychological disintegration, her battle with alcohol and prescription drugs, she will always be, unashamedly, Judy.
It would be excusable to see this story as romancing the life and death of Judy Garland but thanks to an impressive, scintillating performance by Renee Zellweger as the troubled star and with superb additional support from Jessie Buckley, Rufus Sewell and Finn Wittrock, what comes across is much more than a love letter from the 21st Century to the waxed lyrical golden era of cinema and stage, it is a warning of how manipulation can breed disease inside the human spirit. Judy Garland was the biggest star on the planet, yet with all her problems, with failed marriages, with money being handled by others who spent her dry, and with a serious drug addiction, being a star was the last thing she actually needed, but then, as the film wonderfully portrays, the fans, the audiences, have never forgotten her.
It can only be hoped in life that we are loved, adored by someone, anyone, and even if it long after we have passed on to the next stage show in the sky, to be looked at with the emotions shown by Mickey Rooney as he paused over a picture of Judy Garland on a screen one Saturday evening in the August of 2013 in front of over 2000 international poets in Washington D.C., then as when Ms. Garland died, the sentiments were known, a woman who touched so many lives, who perhaps embodied the pursuit of acceptance in her art and in her life, could not have been captured with any greater effect or decency as she is in this Rupert Gold directed film.
Judy is a film to which you cannot avoid the emotional attachment formed, the chances are you will weep, no matter who you are, for the strength and fragility shown on screen will kick you when you least expect it and to be somewhere over the rainbow is where you will surely find your heart once more.
Ian D. Hall