Sid & Judy, 2019.
Directed by Stephen Kijak.
Starring Jon Hamm and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
SYNOPSIS:
A revealing new look at Judy Garland fifty years after her tragic, untimely death, fusing the unpublished recollections of producer, manager and third husband, Sid Luft, with film clips, rare concert footage and Judy’s own inimitable words.
Between this documentary and the just-released Renée Zellweger-starring biopic Judy, audiences certainly have their fair share of cinematic access to the life and times of legendary singer-actress Judy Garland. For those craving a more sober, less-dramatised approach, this offering from filmmaker Stephen Kijak (Cinemania, We Are X) should do just the trick.
Based partially on the recently-published memoirs of Garland’s third husband Sid Luft, Sid & Judy details not only their 13-year marriage, but also how Garland broke into the industry and became a star, as well as the litany of comebacks upon comebacks which defined her turbulent – and tragically short – life and career.
While in many respects Kijak’s film adopts an over-familiar tell-us-a-story doc format, what really makes this piece sing is the almost discomfortingly intimate access the director has been granted to Luft’s treasure trove of letters and personal recordings, many featuring Garland herself. And in a neat twist, Jennifer Jason Leigh has been drafted in to narrate the actress’ written thoughts, while Jon Hamm speaks in place of her husband, delivered in a deliciously smooth film noir-aping style.
Beyond any gimmicks, though, the personal quality of the material is what truly wins out; there is an authentic delve into both an artist and a human’s mind over the decades, warts and all, accompanied by a healthy amount of spine-tingling performance footage.
And despite the obvious potential for this film to become a doting hagiography, between the undeniable talent on display and the clear desire to underline the bad as much as the good, this never feels like a doc egregiously authored-by-estate.
It is, unavoidably, a sad account of a curtailed life, though. Kijak’s film makes an especially upsetting and compelling case for Garland as a victim of the historic Hollywood studio system, where stars were treated more as commodities than flesh-and-blood people. In an attempt to keep Garland both thin and conscious during long shooting days, she’d be pumped with powerful amphetamines by studio doctors.
This fostered an eventually fatal addiction which saw the entertainer sew pills into her clothing to ensure she had access at any errant moment. At this point, one must consider how anyone could achieve self-actualisation when they’ve spent the first half of their 30 years on the planet under the studio’s thumb. That’s not to ignore a fraught family life, pushed into showbiz by her combative mother from an early age, creating a fateful cascade of pressure to perform, dependency and depression which eventually claimed her life with a barbiturate overdose at just 47 years of age.
But Kijak keeps the tonal balance delicate, and for every mournful moment there’s one that charms. In one memorable aside, Garland explains that she went into labour on the eve of the 1955 Academy Awards ceremony, and being up for a Best Actress Oscar, had her delivery room invaded by a TV crew in case she won (she didn’t). There’s a luminosity to the recordings, whether a performance or some off-the-cuff chit-chat, which will surely prove precious to fans and richly intriguing to neophytes also.
The doc’s conventional format is enlivened by intimate and frequently heart-rending access to Garland’s life. An uncompromising if certainly not authoritative summation that ably convinces of its subject’s genius.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
