A Woman Under the Influence: In Praise (and Defense) of Julia

The morning after Julia, Erick Zonca’s third (and first English language) feature was screened for the press at the Berlinale, I bumped into a small group of acquisition folks from several American mini-majors. Each was thumbing through one of the dailies, quickly scanning the coverage of the previous day’s offerings – reviews that (I’ve now learned) can make or break a film’s chance for acquisition. I asked what they thought of Julia, for I hadn’t yet fully come to terms with what I thought of it. After a few quick glances at each other, I heard the following: "Too long. Has be to trimmed by at least thirty minutes." "Audiences won’t sit still for this." "You can’t expect people to invest that amount of time in a character with no redeeming qualities." "She’s hateful from start to finish. Where’s the entertainment in that?" "D.O.A." Their comments reflected the opinions found in the Variety and Screen Daily reviews. When I brought up issues of the film’s art, its homage to Cassavetes, and the brave lead performance by Tilda Swinton, I was met with stares and smirks. Looks that made it all too clear that it’s the bottom line that matters; as if to remind me that this a business, and nothing more. Now, granted, I’m but an infant in the distribution game, but if I should ever begin to toss around such flippant, dismissive statements, or begin to speak of film as pure commodity – kill me. Greencine's David Hudson is right when he says that Julia feels like several films in one, and as a result it took me several days to reconcile how I felt about it. I can’t help but wonder if other critics, who had but a few hours to turn in their reviews, would have felt different about it given some time to reflect. Perhaps not, at least judging by Stephanie Zacharek’s über-pan in Salon, where she feels the need to "send up a giant red flag to everyone who loved…The Dreamlife of Angels" and would gladly make a deal with Satan to get her two hours back. Ouch! Were my instincts wrong, even after two viewings? (I caught the film again on the final day of the festival.) It’s possible, but if anything my admiration for the film has grown stronger in the weeks since I’ve seen it. Contrary to early reports, Julia is not a remake of Gloria, though it is an unabashed tribute to Cassavetes, particularly in its creation of a female lead character that recalls the unforgettable roles he crafted for his wife, Gena Rowlands. Set in a non-descript and bland-looking Los Angeles, the film opens in a dimly-lit nightclub, where we first lay eyes on the 40-something Julia, dancing along drunkenly to The Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) as she attempts to seduce a married businessman. She's an alcoholic whose flimsy, low-cut dress, costume jewelry, and heavily applied makeup can’t fully hide the fact that she’s past her prime party-girl years. Her days typically begin in a strange bed or in the backseat of a car, dress hiked up, one breast clumsily exposed, and badly hung-over. What passed for sexy the night before looks less so by the cold light of morning.  Fired from her job, she turns to friend and sponsor Mitch (Saul Rubinek, in a knockout performance), who only agrees to help her if she goes back to AA meetings. It's there that she meets Elena (Kate del Castillo), a young Mexican woman who enlists Julia to help her kidnap her eight year-old son Tom (Aidan Gould), who is now living with his grandfather, a powerful and wealthy businessman. What follows is a kidnapping cum road movie that ultimately winds up as an action-packed suspense thriller. It's both an exhausting and exhilarating 140 minutes, to say the least. There's barely a moment that Swinton isn't on-screen, and it's clear that Zonca built the film around her. It's her strongest performance to date, and she allows herself to be filmed in ways that few actresses would, going beyond the sweaty-armpits and gut-fat of Michael Clayton, adding cellulite and a sagging bottom to this often-unflattering portrait of a woman on the verge. (I have to say though, it's wonderful to see a "real" woman on screen for a change.) Julia is an unpleasant character, but nothing she does is pre-meditated. She lives in the moment, unable and unwilling to plan ahead, let alone consider the potential repercussions of her actions; a lethal mixture for a kidnapper. As a result, her treatment of young Tom is extremely difficult to watch at times, though her negligence isn't sadistic by nature – she genuinely doesn't see what's wrong with leaving a child sleeping alone under the desert sky, or tying him to a radiator pipe. Some I spoke with in Berlin had a problem watching a character they deemed hateful – something that didn't trouble me at all. I've never subscribed to the particular dictum that lead characters must be likeable, made gospel by the likes of Robert McKee et. al. Zonca doesn't posit Julia as a victim, nor does he attempt to explain why she's become the woman she is – selfish, solipsistic, and in constant denial. Perhaps this explains why the response to the film has been so vitriolic. Though there are hints at redemption (including a bonding scene with the boy which is terribly out of place), this isn't one of those young-boy-teaches-the-old-drunk-about-the-true-meaning-of-family movies.  (Thank god!) Yet at the same time I think Zonca fails, somewhat, in his efforts at turning Julia into a Cassavetian character. Julia's downward spiral from mere alcoholic to felony fugitive is all well and good, and like Cassavetes, Zonca doesn't analyze her subjectivity – we're constantly forced to re-examine our assessment of her. However, what's missing is the undeniable humanism of Cassavetes, which found its way into all of his warts-and-all characters. More than Gloria, Julia is closer in spirit to Cosmo Vitelli – another down-on-his-luck character who resorts to a desperate act as means of survival. Yet Zonca doesn't plunge deep enough to properly explore the insecurity, alienation, etc. – the things that make her all-too-human – and she comes off as too much of an absolute, a thing Cassavetes' strove to avoid. The desperation is there, but she lacks the malleability of just about all his characters. Though much like The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Julia manages to succeed as a character-driven study contained within the framework of a genre film. Visually the film is a treat, and Zonca and cinematographer Yorick Le Saux have truly captured the essence of American cinema of the 70s, with road sequences that recall Mazursky, Schatzberg, and Hellman, particularly in its use of muted colors and overexposed exterior shots, blown-out sunlight and all. At the moment Julia is without a US distributor, though I imagine that will soon change. It's somewhat amusing that Variety (and others) are calling for the film's running time to be shortened – that's the very issue Cassavetes faced on nearly all of his releases. To shorten it would reduce it to a mere action/suspense flick, and I pray it doesn't come to that.