I know.
There’s something wrong with me, right?
“But it’s so sad,” you tell me, “Zellweger is a wonderful character actress, she’s going to win an Oscar.”
True.
My problem is that it’s time to leave this woman alone. No film can do her justice. You want to understand how good she was then watch her films and listen to her albums. You want to know how sad her life was then read one of the million books that have been written but no film can do it all. This one hints at everything and says nothing and (sorry everyone) the singing is awful. I don’t have a problem with Over the Rainbow, as a musical because it’s a vehicle for aspiring singers to show their wonderful voices but to re-do it as a film and add elements to make it seem like a biopic just doesn’t work for me.
However, you will love it. Everyone does.
If you are like me and likely to find it a little disappointing then I hope you at least get the hysterical experience I had.
We went to Lakeside, which I thoroughly recommend, as it was excellent value. Lakeside is a place that seems to inspire hysterical laughter in me. Years ago, the Long Suffering Husband accidentally locked me in the car there. It was a new car with one of those new-fangled keys with buttons on the lock the door remotely. He had got out and before I could had accidentally pressed the button. The golf-tee shaped knobs went down with their accompanying sound and as I tried to open the door to get out I realised I was locked in. He stood in front of the car, looking in through the windscreen with a puzzled look on his face. I was heavily pregnant (hence my slowness in getting out of the car) and my brain wasn’t quite able to get me to form the words that explained what had happened, so I just flapped my hands to the side and said, “blip, blip.” It was one of those moments that prompted hysterical laughter - always dangerous for a heavily pregnant woman with a full bladder locked in a car - and 25 years later one of us only has to flap our hands and say, “blip, blip,” and we are laughing again.
Anyway, back to Judy and the Wall.
All cinemas are different. Some have a centre aisle, some a side one, others have one each side and the lucky ones have all three. This theatre was quite small with stairs at the left side only. We were in the front raised seats. The lights were dimmed and there was an announcement about lights and phones and enjoying the experience, followed by some extended silence. It was during this silence that an older couple came in. Their seats were on the right side of the cinema, so logically they walked across the front of the screen to go up the right hand steps. As, you know there were no right hand steps but it was dark and the man was determined. He launched himself straight into the wall, bounced back and looked surprised. A cinema full of people trying not to laugh is an infectious place to be. Shoulders were lifting up and down all over the place and people were wiping their eyes of the tears you get from suppressed laughter, as the couple sheepishly crossed back across the front of the screen to go up the only steps to find their seat. “Stop,” the woman next to me hissed at her friend, before taking in a sharp sigh, that indicated she was also slightly hysterical.
The couple found their seats and everyone tried to compose themselves.
The film started. Young Judy and the odious LB were in Oz and he said, “You’ve got to imagine what’s beyond the wall.”
We were gone.
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| He was off to see the Wizard |
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