Review of Being Julia

The past few days have been super busy for me, more than usual...

I saw Being Julia on Wednesday. I thought it was almost a great movie. I thought the actors did a great job, which I was expecting, especially with Annette Bening. Although given the cast the movie has the makings of being an especially great award sweeping movie, it doesn't cut it. I think the wrong pieces were left on the cutting room floor. Certain scenes ran too short. Others that should have been combined into one were split into a fragmented view of the story, which reduced the impact of some of the more powerful ideas and advances in the plot. The skill of conveying who Bening's character was in a superiorly subtle way as a thread throughout was completely undermined towards the very end of the movie when she has a discussion with her son, who explains it to her - very disappointing to hear it put so plainly after it had been so perfectly conveyed, because it took away from the effect. The movie was just OK, with the potential to be great.