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Being Julia
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 38 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 14 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama
Written by:
Ronald Harwood
W. Somerset Maugham (novel Theatre)
Directed by: István Szabó
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 15, 2004
DVD: March 22, 2005
Running Time: 105 minutes, Color
Origin: Canada / USA / Hungary / UK
Summary
RATING: R for some sexuality
Starring Annette Bening, Catherine Charlton, Jeremy Irons, Michael Gambon, Shaun Evans, Bruce Greenwood, Juliet Stevenson, and Rosemary Harris
This intoxicating combination of wicked comedy and smart drama stars Annette Bening as Julia Lambert, a beautiful and beguiling actress in 1930's London. (Sony Pictures Classics)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Sunshine Taking Sides
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The supporting performers all shine, especially Irons in the thankless role of the clueless cuckold husband.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Bening makes the movie into something finer still.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Meredith Brody
Witty, satisfying, and a terrific showcase for the radiant Bening.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
Maugham's signature wit and tragic colorations are well served by director Istvan Szabo (Mephisto) and screenwriter Ronald Harwood (The Dresser).
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
The filmmakers have brought such breadth and depth to the material. Everyone counts in this film, not just Julia Lambert.
Read Full Review >New York Post Megan Lehmann
A pleasantly diverting period romp that Annette Bening turns into a wickedly funny tour de force.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Being Julia flirts too heavily with soap opera clichés, but it has enough surprises to keep you guessing, and for Annette Bening it's the liveliest of comebacks.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Part of the movie's fascination is watching Ms. Bening play a role that tantalizingly mirrors her own position in today's movie world - and she does it with wit, sparkle, and all-out energy.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
Being Julia is really about the fear of aging and the battle to remain relevant professionally and sexually.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Bening's performance makes up for a lot of deficiencies.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
You can feel her (Bening) drag Being Julia uphill for an hour and a half until the final 15 minutes, when the ground finally levels out and the picture becomes fine, vengeful fun.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Like a truffle in a fluted paper cup, a small delight made with care and attention to detail.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
May lack originality but makes up for it in sheer bravado and really nice clothes
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
It is echt Maugham, in its somehow flattering cynicism, its character crinkles, its perceptions that sting even though they don't go very deep.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
A delightful though wafer-thin starring vehicle for one of our finest actresses, Annette Bening.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Ms. Bening is the only reason to see the movie, but a compelling reason. Just like Julia, she prevails over lesser mortals with unfailing zest.
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
A tour de force and an utter delight, studded with priceless supporting bits by Miriam Margolyes, Maury Chaykin, Rosemary Harris and Rita Tushingham, each of whom steals at least one richly deserved moment in the spotlight.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Stina Chyn
Szabo could have made a conventional melodrama...The director takes an alternate route and offers his viewers a drama burnished with a coat of comedy.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
The little drama queen who lives inside each of us will find Being Julia hard to resist.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Like a palate-cleansing sherbet in place of an entre?. It's mildly flavorful going down, leaves us hungry for something more substantial and fades from memory the moment we've finished it.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Annette Bening plays Julia in a performance that has great verve and energy, and just as well, because the basic material is wheezy melodrama.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Whether it's the clothing, cars or furniture, everything is sleek and chrome-plated. That is, with the exception of Bening's alchemical performance, which turns brass to gold.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
It's a virtual clip reel of grandly comic moments that remind us what a good actress can do when parts are scarce.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
A bland Shaun Evans is woefully miscast as the brash American.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Because I so enjoyed the last 45 minutes, I'm tempted to recommend it. The problem is that you have to sit through an hour to get to the worthwhile parts.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Bening takes a complex, sometimes cloying character and makes her sympathetic - all the while pulling off a British accent with seeming ease. She single-handedly makes the movie worth seeing.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
Being Julia may not make much psychological or dramatic sense, but Ms. Bening, pretending to be Julia (who is always pretending to be herself), is sensational.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Kim Morgan
But for all Benings high emoting and her trademark giggle, here overused to the point of annoyance, for most of its length Being Julia offers little insight into a woman whose life is ruled by theatrics.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
Suggests a cross between "Sunset Boulevard" and "All About Eve." The suggestion, alas, doesn't go very far, but Bening's performance approaches the pantheon.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
A minor affair, a confection based on dalliances and the way a set of sophisticated theater people handle them, that lacks true distinction.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
Films about great theatrical divas (so temperamental! So divine!) all strike familiar notes. This Somerset Maugham adaptation is no exception. But Annette Bening, playing the queen of the '30s London stage, makes it worth another go-round.
Read Full Review >Empire Anna Smith
It's a shame the suggested theme of identity remains undeveloped, but there are enough laughs and splashes of nostalgic glamour to excuse that.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
The performance of Bening (and, quietly, Irons) keeps Being Julia from being too tiresome.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
It looks handsome but seems infected by the idea of playing different roles; a comedy in one scene, it adopts a mood of a high seriousness the next and clutters the stage with minor characters that contribute little. In the end, this inability to make up its mind does the film in.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Leslie Camhi
Bening's comic gifts make the most of Ronald Harwood's witty screenplay, though she falls flat in her character's rare moments of sincerity.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Hungarian director Istvan Szabo (Sunshine) overplays his hand and traps Bening in a role that's all emoting, no emotion.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 14 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Egy C. gave it a10:
That's one of the greatest films I've ever seen. Annette Bening is excellent and we can't forget that Szabo Istvan is anexceptional director.
M Middle gave it a2:
tedious, utterly implausible farce, irritating even as a period piece.
[Anonymous] gave it an8:
Solid performances and great script.
Tracy R gave it a5:
Too fluffy. And honestly, as good as Bening is here, I started to feel badly for her. Too much work for too little reward.
Mark B. gave it a9:
Pure, sinful deliciousness from beginning to (near) end. Ronald Harwood's uncommonly witty account of the personal, professional and romantic challenges of an aging stage star in the 1930s, stylishly directed by Istvan Szabo and given a ravishing production that rivals the stunning period work in The Aviator and Kinsey, this plays like All About Eve would've if Margo Channing had been pulling all the strings. While leaving room for plenty of terrific moments for its entire cast, especially Jeremy Irons as the spouse with whom Julia has, let's say, an "agreement" with, Miriam Margoyles as a patron with, let's say, more than a professional interest in Julia, and the wonderful Juliet Stevenson as Julia's critical but loving assistant, Being Julia gives Annette Bening the role of a lifetime (no small accomplishment considering that said lifetime includes perfect performances in Bugsy, American Beauty and much more). She responds with the performance of her and many other performers' lifetime; gloriously over the top but always recognizably, touchingly human, her Julia is alternately and simultaneously calculating, shrewd, vain, ruthlessly manipulative, hugely vulnerable and tremendously sympathetic. When her career and personal life are threatened, you feel for her and want to stand up and cheer (I nearly did, but controlled myself) when she starts to regain control, and yet she carries out her objectives with such singleminded focus that it's almost possible to feel sorry for her adversaries for even daring to think they could cross her path. (ALMOST, I said.) I won't complain at all if Hilary Swank achieves her second Best Actress KO against Bening; I loved Million Dollar Baby and she's terrific in it, but she's playing somebody you're almost immediately predisposed to like and admire; Bening has the far greater challenge pulling off a character who encapsulates every possible color and shade in the spectrum. Besides, in an industry where Harrison Ford, Sean Connery and Michael Douglas can pull down obscenely huge paychecks for playing action or romantic leads year after year until they reach George Burns' age, despite notorious box office flops for each of them, and Kathleen Turner is relegated to Baby Geniuses after one or two career missteps, a victory for Bening (partially due to the nature of her role and what it says about women in show business, now as then) would, along with Virginia Madsen's incredibly gratifying comeback in Sideways, be a hugely welcome triumph for ALL older actresses. Whether this occurs or not, Bening and Being Julia are wonderfully sophisticated fun marred only by the tiniest unnecessary note of uncertainty and ambiguity in the final seconds. C'mon, Ronald and Istvan: why do or say anything to question what a marvelous thing it truly is to be Julia?
Maria E. gave it a2:
Bening's laugh all the through the movie even at really inappropriate times was really, really annoying. The movie didn't go anywhere. It was tiresome.
Jeff L. gave it a 9:
Annette Bening gives a glorious, Oscar-worthy performance in this smart, witty, and very entertaining adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's novel "Theater," about an aging British actress (Bening) in 1930's London who finds a new lease on life after falling into an affair with a manipulative young American (Shaun Evans). But even as she discovers his true colors, Julia is determined to have the upper hand. Ronald Harwood, who wrote two other fine films about performers (The Dresser and The Pianist), adds another distinguished script to his list of credits, while Hungarian director Istvan Szabo (Mephisto, Sunshine) purportedly was inspired by the work of the great Ernst Lubitsch (The Shop Around the Corner, Ninotchka, To Be or Not to Be, among numerous works of genius). The supporting cast is also terrific, especially charming Jeremy Irons as Bening's husband ("the handsomest man in England") and the criminially underrated Juliet Stevenson (Truly Madly Deeply, Bend It Like Beckham) as her hilariously tart-tongued yet devoted dresser. But make no mistake, this is Bening's film from the start. She can be bitchy, sexy, vain, pathetic, vulnerable, and vengeful, often in wonderful combinations. In some ways, she is a warmer variation on Margo Channing, the character played by Bette Davis in the matchless stage drama All About Eve. Bening has done spectacular work throughout her career (The Grifters, Bugsy, American Beauty), but this may be her finest-ever moment on the silver screen. Aspiring actors and all theater buffs should find special joy therein.
