Judy Garland. Hollywood royalty. Gay icon. Star of one of
the greatest films ever made. Making a biopic about her could have easily
rested on her Yellow Brick Road days and captured something resembling
poignancy; knowing how much of modern cinema owes to that film, from the
continuing evolution of movie musicals to the dream-logic narratives of David
Lynch, it’d resonate on that alone. But instead, director Rupert Goold and
writer Tom Edge have gone for a different take, looking at the final year of
Judy’s life, when she was trying to scrape together enough money from
performing in London’s Talk Of The Town to officially retire. And the vision
they give is so utterly spellbinding, it’s difficult imagining this story
looking or feeling any differently than this.
