Ebert’s rave review for Swinton’s Julia

Thanks to limeymcfrog for tipping us to Roger Ebert’s 4-star review for Tilda Swinton in Julia, a movie that had completely slipped past our radar.

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.

The outline of the plot reminds me of another eponymous heroin who was tough as nails, Gloria, which should have won an Oscar for Gena Rowlands.

“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.

This sounds fantastic. The sort of leading role Tilda Swinton deserves but seldom finds. We’ll want to keep our eyes on this one. Directed by Erick Zonca, who gave us The Daydreams of Angels in 1998. Click to Ebert’s site at the Sun-Times for more of his enthusiasm, but be warned that the review is more spoilery than I prefer. Not so much by revealing specific plot details, but by describing elements of the screenplay structure that would be more fun to discover on the screen.

Another strong contender for Best Actress, Julia has been in limited release since May. As Ebert says, Magnolia Pictures needs to be pushing this harder. Yes, it’s got an arty French pedigree — but so does Taken. Poster after the cut.