Wonderful Movie

A Disappointing Continuation

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

When it comes to the likes of "Chick Flicks" - I'd confidently say that 1977's "Julia" rates as one from that particular genre that even men can enjoy. This well-crafted movie certainly does deliver some fine moments of storytelling.This film's story faithfully traces the life-long relationship between real-life playwright Lillian Hellman (played by Jane Fonda) and her dear friend Julia, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy Jewish businessman who, in her twenties, turns her back on her privileged upbringing to staunchly follow her somewhat radical political ideals.Set in the mid-1930s - Julia and her loyal comrades battle the fierce exigencies of a Nazi regime in war-torn Germany. Wishing desperately to help her friend, Hellman arrives in Germany from the USA and soon finds herself inadvertently drawn into Julia's extreme resistance movement, which immediately poses grave danger to all involved."Julia" was adapted for the screen from excerpts of Lillian Hellman's memoirs titled Pentimento. Screenwriter, Alvin Sargent, and actors, Jason Robards and Venessa Redgrave each won an Oscar for their contribution to the success of Julia. This film would feature Meryl Streep in her screen debut.

Jane Fonda stars as Lillian Hellman and Vanessa Redgrave stars as her friend, the title character, in Julia. The two women grow up together but take separate paths in adulthood. Lillian bonds with Dashiell Hammett, played by Jason Robards, and becomes a writer, and Julia goes to Oxford. In the years before WWII, Julia stands up to Nazis and gets punished for it, and when Lillian rushes to her to help, she finds herself involved in a dangerous and secret mission.While Jane is always very likable and easy to root for, her costar feels washed-out by comparison. Vanessa can't stand up to Jane's energy, and her performance is easily forgettable, even though she won an Academy Award for it. Jason Robards, also naturally grumpy and unlikable, also won an Oscar for his performance.I didn't end up liking this movie, and since there are hundreds of pre-WWII, anti-Nazi movies out there, I wouldn't really recommend watching this one unless you're a die-hard Vanessa Redgrave fan. I'm not, so I don't tend to enjoy her movies.

We often learn about the past from text books and documentaries which detail larger conflicts, such as the rise of Nazism in Germany which leads to the Second World War. Although understanding the larger history is certainly important, experiencing a story about how individuals and their lives are forever changed by conflict can be as important and even more enlightening. "Julia" is a film chronicling how several people's lives are changed by the rise of fascism in Germany.The story is told by and centered on Lillian Hellman (Lilli, as portrayed by Jane Fonda, academy-nominated for Best Actress) about her childhood friend Julia (Vanessa Redgrave in an academy-award winning performance) who becomes an active force against fascism in Vienna and Germany before World War II. She originally comes from a wealthy family in Britain. As a minor, Julia resides with her grandparents in a country estate larger than many small towns in the mid-west, and her young friend Lillian often visits her. The younger Lilli and Julia are played by younger actors who are nearly as convincing as their older counterparts. Unlike her grandparents, Julia shows from a young age an interest in social issues and class inequity. The narrative often juxtaposes between Julia and Lilli when they are young and their lives as adults. But even when young, Julia and Lilli engage in discussions about social injustice. At one point, Julia recounts a visit to Cairo where she sees the immense and widespread poverty. When she comments on what she sees, her grandparents say "Don't look at them." The story also has another thread: Lillian Hellman, struggling female playwright living with the immortal Dashielle Hammet at a beach house probably near cape cod or Connecticut north of New York. She strives to write a good play. Hammett is her ultimate critic, and has no sympathy when she's unable to produce to her potential. The three narratives are constantly being interspersed: Lillian as a girl with her young friend Julia, Lillian as the struggling writer with Hammett, and her friendship with Julia as an adult. At one point, she finishes her first play, "The Children's Hour", which makes her a national and international celebrity.While we mostly see Julia in flashback, we meet Julia rarely in the present-moment of the narrative. The first is a devastating incident concerning extremists infiltrating and butchering members of a hospital where Julia works, probably providing care for the needy. Then later, when she is vacationing with friends from the US South in Paris, Lilli receives a message from Julia via a strange man, Johann (Maximilian Schell) who speaks about a cause and movement against Hitler. Julia and the members of the movement request Lillian to engage in a task, which at the forefront seems simple yet is potentially dangerous. Her mission is to transport something important from Paris to Berlin while she's on her way to Moscow. Trouble is, she's never played a secret agent before.Every once in awhile, a film which is both moving and insightful appears on the screen. "Julia", which at the beginning seems more like a character study of Lilli, Hammett, and Julia, until the sequence concerning her mission turns the story into a riveting plot. Underneath the entire experience are overtones about the rages and ultimate tragedy of fascism. This is by far my favorite performance by Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave, whose friendship appears like you might imagine two people who have known each other for a long time. A bit to my disappointment which in no way reflects on my view of the film, the character of Julia may be somewhat fictional. Hellman in her book Pentimento, which contains the novella entitled Julia for the which the film is based, may be a combination of fact and fiction. But either way, the story is compelling, plausible, and ultimately beautiful. Whether or not I believe in a real Julia, I believed in the character of the film and in Lilli, her beloved friend, and the story they tell.

Author and playwright Lillian Hellman surely gave us some wonderful stories and plays for stage and film in the early to middle 20th century. But, this was not one of them. Indeed, its claim to be a story of her own experience from WWII has since been shown to be untrue. Shortly after the film's release, Hellman was proved to have pirated the story from another writer. Soon, a number of other people attested to her falsehoods about several claims she had made about herself. For more on this, see any of several bios of Hellman online, including the IMDb accounts, Wikipedia and some other more detailed accounts. It seems as though Hellman may have become too enamored with herself over time. Indeed, some more revealing historical accounts of her life have shown more intimidating times of her past. She opposed political asylum in the U.S. for some early Russian communist leaders while giving unashamed support for Joseph Stalin — even knowing of his execution of many Russians.So, what about the film, "Julia?" The fact that Hellman did not experience this so-called chapter in her life may be why it comes across as so poorly scripted. And why the actor playing her, seems so dubious in the role. This should be apparent to anyone who knew much about Hellman and her feisty, self-assured, at times belligerent character. If Jane Fonda was playing Hellman, then Hellman didn't even get her own character right. That, or the script was written without the passion that someone who really experienced it would have known. Either way, it really showed in the choppy and abrupt changes of scenes. The story could have been one of great intrigue, but for the distractions caused by the poor scripting and almost droll acting by Fonda. I can't imagine that a number of the silly moments of forgetfulness by Fonda would be in the script. What was Hellman thinking? To what purpose? Fonda's forgetting to leave the box of chocolates on the train, forgetting to put on the hat, and a few other such incidents of memory loss were quite glaring considering that these were covered with such explicit instructions for her. All that forgetfulness just made me focus on how little the main person (Hellman/Fonda) paid attention to her friend Julia; and how simple- minded she could be. She just didn't seem to grasp the reality of what was going on around her. Could that have been the intended portrayal of the Fonda role? Hellman writing Hellman to be such a dumb ox — I doubt it. All of the acting was not poor. Indeed, Vanessa Redgrave was excellent as Julia. But that the film received so many other Oscar nominations, including one for Fonda as best actress, only reflects the poor quality of films from Hollywood for the year. Only a handful of movies competed for most of the major awards, and none of them were great films. Compare 1977 to most years in the previous four decades when many, many films competed in different categories, including those years when one or two huge blockbusters ran away with the bulk of awards. (Look at 1962, for instance. Nearly two dozen films got Oscar nominations, and a dozen truly great films competed for top honors.)As I said at the start, Lillian Hellman gave us some great and enduring stories in her time. But in her later years she seemed to give way to a type of grandiosity that had her writing completely fabricated events from her life in her autobiography. Her last few years were not proud ones for this once great writer as the truth about her fabrications became widely known. It's interesting to me that in 1977, Hollywood would still put this film out with a claim to its authenticity as lived by Hellman, in the face of the public challenges that had been made. It would still have been okay as a piece of fiction or otherwise; but the poor scripting and poor acting by the main character just leaves this as a mediocre film.My six stars are for the lone top performance by Lynn Redgrave and for the intrigue that was still able to be felt in spite of the acting distractions and script shortcomings.