Being Julia

"Your only reality is the theatre."

"Being Julia" is a homage to the legendary hammy and self-absorbed actors of yesteryear. Set in 1930's London, the movie stars Annette Bening as Julia Lambert, a forty-five year old actress who suddenly realizes that her best years may be behind her. She is exhausted, depressed, and bored with her life. Her marriage to her business manager, played with his usual aplomb by Jeremy Irons, is for the most part, platonic. What better way to perk things up then to embark on a foolhardy affair with a man half her age? Julia takes as her lover a fawning American, played stiffly by the plastic and conventionally handsome Shaun Evans. Julia throws caution to the winds. She falls hard for the impoverished boy and plies him with expensive trinkets and cash gifts. Meanwhile, a young blonde actress, Avice Crichton, comes along to challenge Julia and the ambitious upstart threatens to upstage the older woman both on and off the stage.

"Being Julia" has a nice look, with its vintage cars, period furniture, and authentic costumes. The musical background, which includes such ditties as "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries," sets the appropriate mood. However, the plot of this film is as trifling and paper thin as its shallow characters. The main reason to see "Being Julia" is to enjoy Annette Bening's amusing and effervescent performance as the ultimate diva. Julia is a talented and vivacious prima donna who appears to be vain and supremely self-confident. Bening shows the fear and the loneliness beneath Julia's haughty demeanor. Julia senses that sooner or later, her star will lose its luster. She knows in her heart that her ultimate enemy is old age; it is the one foe that she can never vanquish.

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