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 Great Entertainment; true period style Nov 20, 2008
I enjoyed "Being Julia" a lot. Annette Bening is excellent, totally in command of this extremely complicated character. The final "stage scene" is a display of breathless insanity. Most enjoyable.
Able support from Jeremy Irons, Shaun Evans and the always reliable Juliet Stevenson gives us some very individual characters that only add to the enjoyable goings-on.
Fine direction from veteran Istvan Szabo helps to maintain a steady period sensibility. It's hard to describe to cleverness without giving away essential plot points, but I enjoyed it very much, and am still in awe of Ms. Bening's achievement.
She keeps losing Oscars to Hilary Swank, but given more great roles like this one, she's bound to win someday...
Fine DVD extras, though few.
Annette Benning captures the mid-life crisis perfectly Nov 16, 2008
Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons are superb in the film Being Julia. Bening plays a successful actress enjoying fame and fortune even though she is reaching close to 50 years old. She and her husband, played by Irons, have long had an open marriage. They are business partners as well as parents to a young college age son. Bening plays in one hit play after another but she is reaching the point of artistic, spiritual and physical exhaustion. She meets a handsome gentleman her age for dinner engagements and his attentions and wise advice certainly helps her maintain stability, but she is highly vulnerable as she starts to fall in the mid-life crisis age.
Into this situation falls a handsome young American man with great enthusiasm for Julia and for show business. He seems innocent and young and naive but this is hardly the case. When pursuing a woman, he is determined, self-assured, assertive, funny, fun loving and knowing beyond his years. What does a famous actress do when faced with a handsome adoring younger man while she is in the midst of a vulnerable mid-life crisis?
Julia, who is a master of the stage, is somewhat vulnerable when dealing with real emotional experiences. The ghost of her former friend and director appears often to give her advice on emotion and reality, but Julia makes every wrong move with the handsome young man. She violates the three primary rules of the game of affairs. She admits to him that she has fallen in love with him, she shows open jealousy and possessiveness, and she becomes clinging and weepy. This is the perfect formula to drive a new lover away. To make matters worse, she gives him expensive gifts and lends him money for his debts.
When a young, talented, beautiful aspiring actress comes into the scene, the formula changes. Julia finds that Tom has fallen in love with the girl and that her husband is having an affair with her also. Desperate times call for desperate measures and the resolution of the film is Julia's strategy to once again gain the upper hand.
Exceptionally well acted, both Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons are superb. The supporting cast is also exceptional.
An excellent performance Nov 08, 2008
Being Julia surfaces a deliciously complicated character, played to perfection by Annette Bening. The movie is based on a novel written in 1937 by W. Somerset Maugham: Theatre.
Julia Lambert is the greatest actress in England; recognized and admired by art lovers. Her plays are scheduled for many weeks at a time. On stage she is professional and forgets the reality of the outside world, making her plays the reality of the moment.
But... she is bored, she has lost the energy and romance in the relationship she shares with her husband, played by Jeremy Irons. One day, a rather young male visits this couple and Julia finds in his admiration of her the elements she missed and soon she is involved with this young man in a rather destructive relationship, for while she thinks she loves him, he is only using her to advance his career, to penetrate the walls that protect high society, and to extract the money he needs to live beyond his means. At first she satisfies her vanity, then she is thrilled by the renewed sexual passion and finally, she is hurt beyond her expectations.
They go on a vacation and the young man accompanies Julia and her husband, who are also joined by their son. As with all marital deception, the person committing adultery soon finds that they are jealous of any relationship partner because they fear the same happening to them, and Julia becomes rather jealous of a young woman who becomes involved with the young American, played by Shaun Evans.
The play turns rather interesting because the young woman is also using the rather shy, but by now, rather arrogant lover. All she wants is to be selected to become part of Julia's new theatre play. And... here is where the play becomes simply delicious to watch for Julia's performance is superb, turning this movie into a most see performance. Don't miss it!
Brilliant F-A-R-C-E Jul 24, 2008
People complaining about the characters being thin, whether they give it five stars or one star, are completely missing the genre of this brilliant, witty, delightful film. It's a farce: the characters aren't supposed to be deep, they're supposed to be thin and manic and driven by one or two motives as their plans for love or money make them collide into each other. Every single performance here, down to the fish-eyed butler, is terrific and in tune with the spirit of farce, which is more English and European than it is American. We like our comedy broader and more genial. People in farce don't have to be likable, they have to be funny and self-deceived and involved in one tangle after another. I've seen this movie three times and each time my admiration for casting, script, sets and costumes grows.
 Drama queen. Nov 11, 2007
Being Julia starring the talented Annette Bening could be the only reason to watch this film. Bening's performance earned her a Golden Globe, she is marvelous and has a great sense of humor to play a woman who's husband is cheating on her. This film is a bit slow and overwrought at times but Bening can do anything so with that being said just watch it and see why she is such a great actress. Jeremy Irons ain't too shabby either.
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