Year: 2004
Cast: Annette Bening, Jeremy Irons, Shaun Evans, Michael Gambon, Lucy Punch, Bruce Greenwood, Juliet Stevenson, Miriam Margoyles, Tom Sturridge, Sheila McCarthy, Rosemary Harris, Rita Tushingham, Maury Chaykin, Julian Richings
Director: István Szabó
Nominations: Best Actress (Bening)
Ever seen a movie that you knew from the opening titles was made for no other purpose than to get its lead performer an Oscar nomination?
I mean, that's the only reason I can think of that anyone thought to make a movie like this in 2004. It's a costume drama about the theater, set in 1938 and starring a bunch of consummate actors we already know could handle a movie like this in their sleep, with all the focus on its leading lady, every scene she's in framed as if it's a "For Your Consideration" clip.
It's based on a novella by W. Somerset Maugham, and re-titled so there's no mistaking which performance we're supposed to be focused on (the novella was named simply Theatre), and her co-stars are careful not to upstage her in any way, while she gives the performance we all know she can give.
I'd usually give a plot description here, and I will in a moment, but the plot's not why this movie was made. It's purely a way to get Annette Bening an Oscar nod, and her performance certainly shows; every note of it is a clear, desperate, urgent plea for the Academy to notice her. And when I say that this movie was made to get her nominated, I mean it. This isn't an award-winning performance. It's the kind designed to get on the ballot, not the kind designed to win. And there's literally no other point to this movie; they couldn't have thought, after screening it, that it would make any money (it didn't; it cost 18 million to make and earned less than 15), or that it would garner any other nods. Its costumes and sets look like a dozen other movies set in the 30's, the score is listless and dull, the story is nothing special at all. From start to finish this was a movie whose sole goal was to make it possible for Bening to bill herself as "Three-Time Academy Award Nominee Annette Bening". That it worked kinda irritates me.
Bening stars as Julia Lambert, an aging but very respected stage actress in London, who is bored with her glamorous life, stuffy theatrical director husband Michael (Jeremy Irons) and I'm putting myself to sleep just describing this thing. Oh, boo hoo, you're rich, admired and glamorous but you're bored. A younger man, Tom (Shaun Evans), enters her life and flatters her ego enough that she begins an affair with him; an affair entirely based on her need to feel appreciated, which is odd because she's surrounded by flatterers wherever she goes. In fact, there's more than an implicit suggestion that her maid, Evie (Juliet Stevenson), is in love with her, but knows she can't ever say that.
Michael doesn't really give a rip about her affair with Tom, as the both of them have had numerous affairs over the years, but for some reason both feel the need to pretend to each other that they don't. Tom reveals pretty quickly that he's a manipulative bastard who is at least as skilled at lying to everyone as Julia is. She realizes that Tom has begun seeing a young ingenue (Lucy Punch) and even though Julia has been pretending the entire time that Tom is just her side piece, seeing him with another woman clearly hurts her. So she plots an elaborate revenge that involves casting the young actress (who can't act) in her new play, praising her performance the entire way, and really, honestly, do you even care?
That's the main problem; this movie has no stakes. We don't like Julia, but we're expected to sympathize with her, and she has no real problems, but the entire movie is about her hardships and how she overcomes them. She has an affair, but there's no reason to worry about her husband finding out. She's hurt by her lover, but she only ever cared about how he relieved her boredom and made her feel younger. She's getting on in years but never really seems all that threatened by her fading youth and fame. The story proceeds by numbers and Bening's character has no real arc. The one nice touch was Julia frequently imagining that her long-departed theater coach (Michael Gambon) is still around, directing her on how to act in life. It's not enough to make me care, and as a narrative device, it's not used anywhere near enough.
As for Bening herself, I've already talked about how she's clearly gunning for an Oscar nod here, but the performance isn't terrible, just really self-indulgent. I'll confess, I've never found Bening to be an actress to get excited about. Nothing's wrong with her, per se, but I have never known her to elevate a film by her presence, or to give a performance that really packs a punch. When this movie's release was first announced, several Oscar watchers wondered if this would be the performance "that finally wins her an Oscar", as if she's been unjustly robbed for years now, but honestly, what performance of hers truly deserved to win? I'll say right now, it ain't this one. Which is odd, because I remember this year clearly, and I recall that it was a forgone conclusion that Bening was getting nominated. She won the Golden Globe (for Comedy) and got a SAG nod (in fact, SAG's Best Actress slate was the same as the Academy's that year) and no one was surprised that she got the nod, but...really, what for?
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