Top-notch acting

Movie #2: Julia (2008)
Directed by Erick Zonca; Written by Erick Zonca and Aude Py

Tilda Swinton is an actor whose face serves her well. One would think that her porcelain-pale skin, flashy red hair, sharp nose, high cheekbones, and dazzling green eyes would inhibit her from varying her roles. However, the case is just the opposite. Swinton's talent belies her unique appearance (which has been described as everything from weird to beautiful). What a viewer cannot deny is her watchability. She is in almost every scene of "Julia" in which she plays the title character, an American woman, and not once did I hear even a tinge of Swinton's Scottish accent sneak into the dialogue.

This movie is obviously a vehicle for Swinton's talent. However, "Julia" is more than a character study. It's tense, suspenseful, and at times, downright uncomfortable. Three-quarters into the movie, I was sitting on the edge of my seat, amazed that I was actually rooting for a character whose ugly predicament is caused by her own greed. Here's the scenario: Julia is an alcoholic unable to hold down a job. Swinton plays drunkenness to perfection- from the gradual descent from merely being buzzed to waking up the next morning with a severe case of paste-mouth to the strange, cautious gait she assumes after having been numbed by alcohol.

Julia grudgingly attends AA meetings at the request of her sponsor played by the fabulous Saul Rubinek. At one of the meetings, Julia meets a young Mexican woman who offers her $50,000 to help kidnap her son who has been living with his wealthy grandfather since the boy's father died of an overdose and the mother was deemed incapable of caring for the boy. But in an attempt to get even more money out of the deal, Julia decides to turn the tables on the woman and kidnap the child herself, an act that ultimately has severe consequences.

On the surface, "Julia" is a movie about greed and its consequences. But what I found most interesting are the underlying themes of the movie that you really have to want to see to truly see them. One of these themes is motherhood. Julia, unmarried and childless, has no responsibilities, and cannot even take care of herself. She is, by all standards, a screw-up. Although she has no intention of physically harming the child when she kidnaps him, it's obvious that she has done him enough mental damage to last a lifetime. As she takes him from hideout to hideout, however, she grows more attached to him even though her negligence allows the tables to be turned on her after they cross the border into Mexico, an event that I saw coming but it didn't come when I thought it did... kudos to the writers for that!

While in Mexico, there is a scene of genuine affection between Julia and the child. The scene, involving a partially naked Swinton, is slightly uncomfortable to watch. Nevertheless, I think it serves to establish a growing familiarity between her and the child. He is scared and in a foreign place, and by this point in the movie I think he realizes that Julia will not cause him harm. Because he hasn't seen his real mother in years, Julia may be the only woman with whom he can experience any motherly affection. The fact that his caretaker (shown early in the movie) is male supports this theory.

As was the case with my previously reviewed movie, this film was difficult to watch. The fact that a child's fate lay in the hands of Julia, a woman who has nothing to lose but her love of the drink, is a cruel one. With each lie she tells, she makes things worse for herself and the boy. As Julia digs her proverbial hole deeper, the viewer must wonder when she will stop running from the law, stop trying to get what she thinks she so deserves.

Julia's other major flaw is her inability to communicate with men in a non-sexual way, especially when she's intoxicated. What's curious about Julia is that she appears very tough and street-smart and able to handle herself in any situation, but when drunk and in the presence of a man, she crumbles into a complete ragdoll of a woman. Julia even admits, perhaps in a moment of weakness, that her luck with men is horrible and that her only means of getting them to pay her any attention is through sex. This flaw emerges when she's in Mexico and proves that her need to get a man's attention is just as much of an addiction as is her alcoholism.

I think I saw some good in Julia that may not have even existed. I kept hoping for a happy ending or at least some sort of redemption on her part. Julia is a desperate woman who makes a lot of bad choices, and even by the movie's end, I was not completely convinced that she was acting in the best interest of the child. The movie, gladly, is not cut and dry and allows Julia to remain flawed and conflicted. I still think Julia finds something good, but not without a heavy price.