This from Yahoo.com:

Review: Swinton performance is riveting in `Julia'

By CHRISTY LEMIRE, AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire, Ap Movie Critic – 16 mins ago

LOS ANGELES – "Julia" requires an enormous amount of its star, and of its audience.

Tilda Swinton gives a brash and unflinching performance as a lonely, self-destructive alcoholic who makes some questionable choices, to say the least. And in doing so, she and French writer-director Erick Zonca ask that we go along and stick by her side, every treacherous step of the way.

It's tough to do. There's not much to root for or even vaguely like in Swinton's Julia Harris, a blowzy drunk who can be fun and flirty but who invariably wakes up the next morning with cotton mouth and a pounding headache. Usually her tacky dress is wrapped around her body in some contorted fashion and her garish eye makeup is smeared. Often she doesn't know where she is or the name of the person lying next to her. Nevertheless, she'll start the cycle all over again with a vodka tonic as soon as she can get herself to a bar.

If you've ever indulged with such reckless abandon — even a couple of times in college — you may find yourself sympathizing on some level. Regardless, you're riveted, and not just for the train-wreck factor. Versatile as ever, Swinton pulls you in and keeps you wondering what false move she'll make next. As Julia, she lies and manipulates to keep her head above water. There may be some glimmers of humanity hidden beneath her boozy veneer, but they're hard to find.

That's why the inclusion of her ex-lover, Nick (Saul Rubinek), is so crucial to the film. (Zonca wrote the script with Aude Py.) He sees something redeeming in her — or at least he knows it was there once — and because he's such a decent guy himself, he makes it easier for us to accept her. The moving, tough-love speech he gives her could have been melodramatic; instead, it's a much-needed splash in the face with ice cold water.

It takes a lot more than that, though, for Julia to realize she needs to clean up her act.

First, she gets recruited into an insane scheme by Elena (Kate del Castillo), a jittery Mexican woman she meets at one of the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings she reluctantly and sporadically attends. Elena offers to pay Julia $50,000 to kidnap her 8-year-old son, Tom (Aidan Gould), from the care of his wealthy industrialist grandfather. Then she wants Julia to take the boy to Mexico, where she plans to start a new life with him.

The average person would immediately run away in the opposite direction. Having just been fired from her job because of her drinking problem, Julia needs the money, and so she says yes. But being unstable herself and not nearly as smart as she thinks she is, she tries to upend the plan with one of her own. The way she treats the boy pushes our limits of tolerating her; he responds not with precociousness but with palpable fear.

And this isn't even where things get really ugly yet.

Zonca captures Julia's desperation and her seat-of-her-pants decision making with camerawork that reflects her increasingly frantic state. (He's clearly been inspired by John Cassavetes and his tale of a woman on the run with a young boy, 1980's "Gloria.")

Just because that precedent exists, though, doesn't mean you know where the film is going. Zonca takes Julia, and "Julia," to places you'd never expect — some of them believable, some not so much, but at least they're never boring.

"Julia," a Magnolia Pictures release, is rated R for pervasive language, some violent content and brief nudity. Running time: 138 minutes. Three stars out of four.

From EW's Lisa Schwarzbaum:

This overlong, lurchy homage to John Cassavetes' 1980 film Gloria is a mess, but a fascinating one, given Swinton's desperately avid performance in the title role. The star flings herself into the skin of a wild alcoholic in L.A. who kidnaps a kid (Aidan Gould) for ransom and winds up in Mexico — there's a splashy scene when she crashes her car through to Tijuana. Nothing coheres in Erick Zonca's movie, Julia, only his second since his striking 1998 debut, The Dreamlife of 
Angels; halfway through, Julia becomes a competent, rather than pass-out, drunk. But just try to take your eyes off her.

B-

Should garner Tilda Swinton another Oscar nomination...

quote:

Originally posted by Pucifer:
Should garner Tilda Swinton another Oscar nomination...

I would love to see that, she looks AWESOME, but I wonder if this film will be too small for her to land another nomination...

Here's hoping I'm wrong!

quote:

Originally posted by Pucifer:
Should garner Tilda Swinton another Oscar nomination...

From your mouth to the Oscar voter's ears!

When I saw the running time I thought "isn't this a small indie?" 2 hours and 18 minutes-no wonder EW calls it overlong.

Eek, that *is* long. I love Swinton, though I, too, wonder if the film might be too small. I am going to try to see it. Glad that she is getting nice reviews, even if the film isn't.

I saw it last week and thought Tilda was great - it's a hugely brave performance - but the movie is wild and absurd and waaay too long.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: R2684,

A fantastic review just released by Roger Ebert that has been storming the internet today! I think this review might just help Swinton's chances, as well as get the word out a little bit more about this film!

Julia

Our nice gal Tilda is spot-on as a
boozing, potty-mouthed kidnapper

Release Date: 2009

Ebert Rating: ****

/ / / Jul 1, 2009

by Roger Ebert

Tilda Swinton is fearless. She’ll take on any role without her ego, paycheck, vanity or career path playing a part. All that matters, apparently, is whether the movie interests her, and whether she thinks she can do something interesting with the role. She almost always can. She hasn’t often been more fascinating than in “Julia,” a nerve-wracking thriller with a twisty plot and startling realism.

We have not seen this Tilda before — but then, we haven’t seen most of the Tildas before. This one is an alcoholic slut who lacks what we are pleased to call normal feminine emotions. She’s just been fired from another job. Her pattern is to get sloppy drunk every night and drag a strange man to bed. She needs money. Her neighbor Elena (Kate del Castillo) comes to her with an offer. Her young son is now living with his millionaire grandfather, who won’t allow her to see him. She needs somebody to help her kidnap the child.

This is the beginning of Julia’s nightmare journey through a thorny thicket of people you do not want to meet. If there’s one thing that’s consistent about her behavior, it’s how she lies to all of them. This is not one of those tough heroines you sort of like. You don’t like her. She makes not the slightest effort to be liked. She doesn’t give a damn. She cuts back on the drinking, however, perhaps because she is constantly fleeing — both away from, and toward.

You have to give a lot of credit to Erick Zonca, the 53-year-old French director who co-wrote the film with Aude Py. He makes it move relentlessly. He skillfully buries it in seedy American and Mexican locations that never, ever, feel like sets. He uses a child actor and uses him well. He makes no attempt to sentimentalize the kid, who is spoiled and hostile. He puts Swinton at the center of this, and she plays Julia as a tough broad who is in way over her head, and desperately invents stories to mislead those who want the money involved — which starts out at $50,000 before she cheats her way up to $2 million.

The plot of “Julia,” with its twists and turns and surprises and rotten luck, is, shall we say, not very plausible. I believed it. That’s because everything that happens seems inevitable, not contrived — the inescapable outcome of what has gone before, growing out of the greed and evil of the characters, which Julia, who is herself greedy and evil, is blindsided by. I could summarize the plot for you in one sentence, but I don’t think I will, and when you see the film, you will understand why.

Do we hate this woman Julia? When you see how she treats the boy Tom (Aidan Gould), we want to, except that she’s all that stands between Tom and much worse things, including death. No matter what her motives for keeping him alive, there comes a moment when she shields him with her body from a man with a gun, and an utterly amoral woman would have made a deal.

Oh, she offers lots of deals. She’s not to be trusted. There are times here when only her quick powers of invention keep her and the boy alive, and Swinton does a magnificent job with a tough acting challenge: letting us see how desperate she is without another character being able to tell. This movie lives on the edge all the way through, right up until an astonishing final scene on the median strip of a superhighway. What she does then shows that she’s a better woman than she was when she started out, but you can’t call it a false happy ending, because it’s more wrung out than happy, and, after all, what choice did she have?

“Julia” should have a big ad campaign and be making a lot of noise, stirring up word-of-mouth. It’s being treated as an art film. It’s good enough to be an art film, but don’t let anyone pigeonhole it for you. It’s one doozy of a great thriller. And the acting here is as good as it gets — not just from Swinton, but from Saul Rubinek as her one remaining friend, and by Bruno Bichir as Diego, who she meets in Tijuana. You want to be careful who you meet in Tijuana.

Swinton here is amazing. She goes for broke and wins big time.

Cast & Credits

Julia Tilda Swinton
Tom Aidan Gould
Mitch Saul Rubinek
Elena Kate del Castillo
Diego Bruno Bichir

Magnolia Pictures presents a film directed by Erick Zonca. Written by Aude Py and Zonca. In English and some Spanish with subtitles. Running time: 140 minutes. Rated R (for pervasive language, some violent content and brief nudity).

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com...01/REVIEWS/907019991

With Ebert behind her, hopefully he can work his magic and get people to take notice of Swinton and get her a nomination in this boring year...

I'm in the camp that thinks she'll actually win Best Actress NEXT year for "We Need to Talk about Kevin"

quote:

Originally posted by puxzkkx:
With Ebert behind her, hopefully he can work his magic and get people to take notice of Swinton and get her a nomination in this boring year...

I actually still need to see the film, but with his extrememly positive word, I think it will get the word out there big time! Maybe his words will even force Magnolia Pictures to start a real campaign for her come later on in the season! I hope!!!