Julia (1977)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Sorry, this movie sucks

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

A Film that is Nominated for 11 Academy Awards is Not Likely to be as Awkward as this Powerful but Oddly Presented Story.There are Numerous Flashbacks that Feel Jumpy and take a while for Viewer Adjustment, and the Flow of the Film just seems Off. Good Actors are always Present on Screen and the Period Detail and Cinematography are Impressive.What's Less Impressive is the way it Fleshes Out the Characters. Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda) is shown in way Too Many Scenes with Lover Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards) and while it is meant to bring Hellman Out so the Audience can Identify with Her Struggles as a Writer, it is a Part of the Story that Works the Least and has Little to Do with the Central Theme.The Center of the Story is a Novice Politico asked to become a Traveling Spy and Smuggle Money to Help the Fight against Hitler and Fascism.The Middle of the Movie becomes a Tense and Frightening Trip through a Tumultuous Europe on the Brink of WWII. It's Handled with Restraint by Director Fred Zinnemann and it Feels at times Hitchcockian with its Understated Action with Reliance on Character Quirks and a Foreboding Atmosphere with Confrontation always just a Corridor or Glance from an Eruption.The Movie Looks Great and the Performances are from A-List Professionals, with Vanessa Redgrave as Julia getting a Lot of Ink, and one Expects Nothing Less. But, Overall the Film Lets Down the Efforts with some Jittery Montage and certain Story Arcs that are Uneasily Blended to Constitute Continuity.Overall, an Overrated Movie but Not Without Merit. Worth a Watch, but as Stated, it's Less than a Smooth Encounter about Friendship and Politics in the 1930's. Especially the Love between Two Women that is Exceptional and the Emotion is Heightened by a Search for a Lost Baby in the Final Few Scenes.Note...Based on the supposed truth in Lillian Hellman's account of the events, but much controversy has erupted about the real "truth" of what occurs in the Movie. This review is of the Film and not of its veracity.

Friendships and love. Memory and longing. A film that lets you dwell without forcing you to. The story, a true account, told by Lillian Hellman in "Pentimento" was debased by one of Hellman's fans that became her assistant. Imagine. Trying to destroy your mentor. Real or imaginary the story lived in Hellman's heart and mind. Fred Zinnemann created a world for the story to acquire a true human dimension. A triumph. Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave are extraordinary as the inseparable childhood friends, Lilli and Julia. Jason Robards, is utterly wonderful as Dashiell Hammett. The film is also the first for Meryl Streep in a short, very short but memorable character. The script by Alvin Sargent, magnificent. Highly recommended.

There are movies - many of them? most of them? - that make no effort to connect with what might be called the art of cinema. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with making a movie just in the hopes of turning a profit.There are also movies - not as many, but still too many - that make every effort to connect with the art of cinema but not enough effort to engage the audience. That, in my opinion, is not so fine, but as long as I don't have to sit through them, I can't complain.And then there are movies - never enough - that connect with and advance the art of cinema not to impress critics but to enthrall audiences. Those are masterpieces, and they keep you riveted to your seat as they unfold.Julia is one such film. I first saw it in 1977 when it was released, and all these 35 years since I remembered enjoying it. This evening I watched it again, and had a chance to marvel at how well it was made. The language is often beautiful, which is appropriate in a movie about a great writer, Lillian Hellman. The images are also sometimes beautiful, which is something to be thankful for. The acting is uniformly fine. It presents Hellman's recollections of a childhood friend of hers, Julia, and her efforts to reconnect with her during the late 1930s, by which point Julia had become involved with anti-Fascist groups in Germany. We never get the details. They don't really matter, or at least didn't to me. There is no great apotheosis at the end; Hellman is not transformed by her experience. It is painful. We are made to feel that pain. The story ends.This is one of the best movie experiences I have had in quite some time. Good script writing, fine acting, and good direction can come together to make a very fine movie. Would that they did more often.

Oscar-festooned as it was, I found my expectations of this film, greatly lowered by my viewing experience. For all its A-List credentials, Fred Zinneman as director, Fonda, Redgrave, Robards and Schell in the leads, I found it a turgid experience.I've actually for many years been an admirer of Hellman's writings (as well as that of her "beau", the hard-living crime-writer Dashiell Hammett), which should have added an extra piquancy to an on the surface anyway, interesting story, but really this was a film which thinks that lots of pauses and meaningless scenes, no matter how beautifully shot or professionally acted, add up to a convincing drama.In truth the film would have been better called "Lillian" as it's Fonda's character who's barely ever off the screen and whose struggle to write her first play hardly seems the stuff of a major plot device. And so we're presented with her adventure in war-threatened Europe ostensibly seeking out her conscience-stricken poor little rich girl childhood friend Julia, played by Vanessa Redgrave (perfect casting there!) and a drawn-out train journey to Berlin opposite two other females who may or may not be on her side. For me however, I found almost no tension in said journey nor did I get any sense of dramatic relief when she fulfils her mission and briefly meets up with a now battle-scarred Julia in a bar.The period recreation is fine, the performances competent enough, although hardly Oscar worthy, indeed Fonda's face seemingly displays only two expressions throughout - fraught and confused.Quite what the point of the film was I'm not sure, its focus blurred between a celebration of a heroic life in dangerous times, a remembrance of a devoted friendship or an examination of artistic creativity. For me it accomplished none of these and must be judged a failure accordingly.