Tilda Swinton Movie:

		List Price: $26.98		Label: Magnolia Home Entertainment Salesrank: 9133 Released: August 18, 2009
		Our Price: $15.95
		Used Price: $5.13
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
Academy Award®-winner Tilda Swinton plays Julia, an alcoholic who, between shots of vodka and one-night stands, gets by on nickel-and-dime jobs. Increasingly lonely, her alcohol-induced confusion daily reinforces her sense that life has dealt her a losing hand. Seeing a financial opportunity after encountering a woman estranged from her son, Julia throws herself into a criminal plot that escalates beyond anything she ever imagined.

Julia Reviews:
Filmmaker Erick Zonca makes another female-centric masterpiece.
2009-11-23 - Ten years ago, I saw a relatively unknown/obscure French film made in 1998 called "The Dreamlife of Angels." After seeing such masterful filmmaking, I eagerly awaited writer-director Erick Zonca's next film. Ten long years later, he has come back with "Julia," and I must say, it was worth the wait. (He did make a film in between, but to my knowledge the film was never released here in the U.S.)

Clearly, Zonca has grown as a filmmaker since then. He manages to keep the same raw, realistic, documentary style, but is now spreading his wings blending it with visual compositions that are highly expressionistic.

He still has the same strength in creating engaging female protagonists, and working with Tilda Swinton, who acts the heck out of the role, he creates a character that is at first, utterly unlikeable: she's a alcoholic on par with Nicolas Cage from "Leaving Las Vegas." If you think this is going to be another tale of desparation you'd be half-right.

Pretty soon a plot as twisty as anything Mamet has written, and as dramatically gritty as the Dardenne brothers, emerges and what starts out as a drama is merely the set-up for a thriller-drama that is really something special.

As a viewer, it's easy to be horrified by Julia's behavior (Tilda Swinton) but like Aaron Eckhart's breakthrough performance in "In the Company of Men," she makes this horrific character so engaging I couldn't take my eyes off the screen, and at the end of the day, she emerges as sympathetic, changed, and most of all--human: flawed, but very human.

And if one stellar performance wasn't enough, Aiden Gould, a child actor, plays his character Tommy without an ounce of pretense or preciousness. It's the kind of brilliant child performance that deserves awards, much like Swinton's.

One warning: this film is not for the faint of heart. There are some very difficult scenes involving mistreating a child and it goes to some very (thematically and plot-wise) dark places.





Tilda Swinton- enough said...
2009-11-12 - Tilda plays Julia, an alcoholic who manages to scrape by day-to-day. When she encounters her neighbor at a AA meeting, a plan is hatched between them to kidnap her neighbor's son, who lives with his rich grandfather for ransom. However, Julia has plans of her own and double-crosses her neighbor for more money. As you might expect, things don't go as Julia planned, and she gets deeper and deeper in legal trouble.

Tilda accurately depicts the life of an alcoholic and the self-destruction and chaos that goes with that lifestyle. Swinton is one of this generation's best actors, and it is a lot of fun to watch her become rabid in this role. In this role she is at times extremely selfish, other times very tender in her interaction with her kidnapped victim.

She is also great in "Young Adam".

I liketky some Tilda Swinton
2009-11-03 - I wanted to watch this movie for solely Tilda Swinton's nude T&A scenes and she did not disappoint. However her character although played out pretty well as usual, wasn't really convining to me. If she were a druggie/crack whore, so highly strung out, I could understand her going to extremes not to mention a white toothpick woman like Tilda would stick out worse than a sore thumb in TJ, Mexico. I don't believe a simple alcoholic would stoop so low, so quickly, and so hard. And if you're reading this review Tilda, my tongue is all yours. I love you baby.

Would have given it five stars, but...
2009-11-01 - Tilda: brilliant. Sol Rubinek: brilliant. The kid: believable, touching. Cautionary portrait of a low-bottom drunk: brilliant. Minus one star? It went on way too long. I'm almost afraid to go to sleep tonight after watching this endless nightmare. Talk about nasty, skanky, insane. Yep, it's a groaner. Still, the acting is tour de force and you don't want to miss it. Just beware: you WILL be appalled. Remember "Deep Crimson"? It was beyond vile, but you couldn't look away. (Actually, this one isn't QUITE that bad, but it's up there.)

Child Endangerment
2009-10-26 - In its opening scenes, "Julia" establishes itself as the tale of a drunk teetering between damnation and redemption.

As such, it carries some of the same tension and dread that 1983's "The Verdict" did. In that movie, the task facing Paul Newman's drunken lawyer was to prove himself competent at winning a trial. The task for Tilda Swinton, in her titular role as Julia, is to prove that her character can competently pull off a kidnapping, and protect a child.

I won't give a synopsis of the plot in this review, as others have already done that. I think it suffices to say that Tilda Swinton "acts her buns off" in this movie, and once again proves herself one of the best and most daring actresses of her time. I can't think of another actress who could pull this kind of role off with so much panache, except perhaps for Susan Sarandon.

Swinton acts the role of the "female desperado" as effortlessly as Sarandon did in "Thelma and Louise." Supporting roles are stellar, too. Saul Rubinek, as Julia's friend and her sole moral influence, is particularly good. Kate Del Castillo, as Elena, the flaky but affecting mother of the kidnapped child is also excellent.

Director Eric Zonca creates a loose slice-of-life drama with a lot of hand-held, up close and intimate camera work. Many of the scenes have a semi-improvised feel to them, and Zonca shows a great eye for the telling detail, such as the long cigarette burns on Julia's bathtub or a child in a bus depot distractedly combing her hair. The scenes in Mexico also are brutally honest in the depiction of a society where trouble will easily find the non-vigilant.

Because the movie is rather loose-knit (we are never informed as to what becomes of Elena, for example), and because Julia's behavior with an innocent child is so unhinged and erratic, most viewers will find this movie uncomfortable to watch. Because it is overly long, I can't give the movie 5 stars...but ultimately this struggle between a corrosive, burnt-out drunk and her hidden maternal instincts will reward those who stick with it.