Big Magilla wrote:She's really impressive in the second trailer for the film.
Bette Davis has always been perceived as having won her first Oscar undeservedly for Dangerous after losing both an official nomination and an allowable write-in vote for Of Human Bondage, then went on to win a generally acknowledged deserved second one for Jezebel. Unless I'm forgetting somebody, if Zellweger pulls it off, she will be the first one since, having lost for Chicago and then won for Cold Mountain conceivably as a make-up.
I obviously missed this when you posted it back in September. Another, maybe not 100% analogous case would be Elizabeth Taylor, who won her embarrassing first for, yeah, the tracheotomy, but just as much for the three losses in three years (a newcomer who almost died wouldn't have been so feted), and then won her second for a performance most would have thought beyond her powers.
Anyway...this movie is pretty much a check-the-box-on-your-Oscar-bingo-card. I remember someone writing "I already know more than I needed about Judy Garland's private life" sometime in the 70s. This movie doesn't find any unexplored avenues -- it just works us through the familiar paces (LB Mayer, boo!; gay fans, hooray). The present-day action is all during the last-gasp years, and it has a fair amount of that losers-losing thing I've always hated (Mickey Deans' "I've got the deal to rescue you" is a bubble set to burst on arrival). When the first gig, after the jittery lead-in, goes well, I thought we'd be spared on-stage meltdowns, but oh, how wrong I was, as we get not one but multiple such episodes, climaxing in a baroque finale. This finale includes a song you might know...let's say, it's the one I'd always heard made Garland audiences groan, because they knew it meant the end of the show. This movie follows that rule.
But, of course, the central role is, like Edith Piaf, one that an actress can devour like a Porterhouse steak, and Renee Zellweger is fully up to the job. I know we all hate the "she disappears into the role/she IS Judy" stuff, but I can say that pretty much from the start I accepted her as latter-day Garland rather than Renee Zellweger. She has the dry, winning humor I can remember from Garland in that period, as well as the desperation that was driving her for at least the last decade. The movie gives her one Oscar clip after another -- maybe too many, in the end. (The film does drag on.) But I have no doubt she'll be a strong contender for the Oscar win, and there have been many less deserving victors.