JULIA (Mongrel, 2008) D: Erick Zonca, w/ Tilda Swinton, Saul Rubinek. Rating: N DVD package: NN Rating: N
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, protagonists don’t have to be likeable, just interesting. Consider Richard III, a vicious schemer but very smart, Hannibal Lecter, a drooling psychopath with superficial charm, or James Bond, a thug in a tuxedo.
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Sadly, Julia Harris is neither likeable nor interesting. She’s a 40ish blackout-alcoholic party girl stupid enough to enter into an obviously crack-brained kidnap scheme.
Tilda Swinton is a fine actor who reveals Julia’s emptiness from the start, leaving us nothing to look forward to. She’s not helped by the leaden dialogue.
At almost two and a half hours, the movie could lose about 40 minutes. Pointless scenes drag on forever. Endless establishing shots kill the tension. About 110 minutes in, there’s a clever plot twist that might have redeemed the movie if it weren’t relentlessly set on its banal and entirely predictable course.
The deleted scenes add more detail to already obvious elements of Julia’s life.
EXTRAS Deleted scenes. Widescreen. English, French audio. No subtitles.
