| Review:
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Abducting While Under The Influence***
Flaunting bad behavior in a film, whether by the characters
or director, is not necessarily a wrong move. Unless, that
is, it's derangement for derangement's sake. Such is the
case with the drenched in gin drama, Julia, in which Tilda
Swinton masterfully pours much more than her heart into
her drunken and dissipated damsel in distress performa nce.
And while viewers are unfortunately left to languish without
a clue, as to how she ended up that way and who she may
actually be when sober.***
Like far too many recent movies, including British
director Joe Wright's The Soloist, Julia is also a cultural
outsider's take on this country which may be fixated on
a US society and sensibility that exists mostly inside the
moviemaker's head. Written and directed by French filmmaker
Erick Zonca, best known for The Dreamlife of Angels, Julia
might just as well have been titled, The Dreamlife Of Erick
Zonca. Tilda Swinton is the perpetually inebriated protagonist
in this rather untimely story of convoluted bottom feeder
financial ripoffs and rampant greed by a host of morally
deficient have-nots, at a moment in history when the planet
has been plunged into economic misery by the corporate and
banking elites.***
When Julia is befriended by a clearly bonkers Mexican
immigrant neighbor Elena (Kate Del Castillo), who pressures
her into a kidnapping plot in exchange for a tidy sum in
order to retrieve her son Tom (Adan Gould), being held by
her rich boyfriend's family, the intoxicated bimbo can't
see past the dollar signs. But she's got a sinister sidebar
scheme of her own, to engage in a secondary kidnapping and
barter the rich kid in exchange for two million dollars
in ransom.***
The particular pleasure of experiencing this movie,
is in watching Swinton do smashed, sassy and super-mean
for the duration. But her journey, such as it may be, which
includes fleeing across the Mexican border while being mistaken
for an illegal by the INS patrol in pursuit, is a little
like sharing the primarily pointless ride and her drunken
stupor as well, with the dazed dragon lady. Though there
are perversely comical moments, as Julia attempts to pull
off various criminal acts like a pro, while barely lucid
in her tipsy state. Kind of like those Buster Keatonesque
bank robbers you hear about every once in a while, who take
ill advised time out in the heat of a heist, to answer their
cell phones.***
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