Julia et Julia

I found this film much like "Sliding Doors" in which Gywneth Paltrow found herself wondering should she have caught the train or missed the train? In this film, Kathleen Turner wonders if her husband really died or did she imagine the whole thing?

The film begins with Turner as a bride marrying Gabriel Byrne. Unfortunately, after the wedding dinner, they drive off into the sunset and into the path of a truck. The car overturns and Byrne dies ... or did he?

Turner grieves pitifully for her groom. And begins a journey into two worlds...one in which she is still married to Byrne and has a young son opposed to one life in which she is a widow working as a travel agent who makes the acquaintance of a very, sexy Sting (Gordon Sumner). Ladies, if you don't enjoy this film, please fast forward to Sting lying on the bed nude...worth the view! (smile)

What makes this film interesting are the very things that some who reviewed it disliked. As it says in the Fun Stuff section, "First movie made on Video master using High Definition Video System (HDVS) at 1225 lines and then printed on 35 mm film format." It may not be that novel today, but remember... this film was released in 1987! I remember watching it. I remember how eerie it was. I didn't know that it was shot in high def; I didn't even know what that was. What struck me about it was how real it seemed. It didn't just have the look of TV. It had the look of a play. Live. In person. I found it disturbing. Perhaps the theme of "sliding between two worlds" and the questions of sanity vs. insanity have also become banal today. It wasn't that these were new themes, even then. But they weren't as outworn as they are today. Hollywood wasn't really into making blockbusters about mental breakdowns. That's a recent phenomenon. At that time, insanity was left to art house directors. Lynch has traditionally done a pretty good job with sanity vs. insanity. What's real? What isn't? That kind of crap.

This film was novel, not because it was blockbuster with the insanity them (it was no blockbuster at all), but because for those who hadn't seen high def, films that questioned sanity... or both... this was something new and unnerving. The performances were great. You can't miss with Turner and Byrne... but Sting was great, too. Much as I hate to say it... he's really an excellent actor. It's always strange seeing him in a film. Isn't he a rock star? There's always that duality. Always that question... "Who am I seeing?" That echoes the "two worlds" insanity of Julia.

It's a grossly underrated film. I think that people don't know how to watch it, if that makes sense. It's held up reasonably well over time. If you haven't already, check it out for yourself and see what you think.

Julia and Julia has an interesting and well-developed plot, so I'm afraid to say that Sting's naked body isn't the best part of it! (sorry girls) The movie has some weak points (seems to be video/35 mm and the mix is a bit strange; the incidental music is a bit cheesy) but its strong points (original and thrilling story, smart structure and, most of all, the ending) help Julia & Julia to become a strange and enjoyable movie -something like David Lynch's flicks ancestor (Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, eg).

Shooting an entire feature on high-definition (circa 1987) video may have saved the producers a few bucks, but you get what you pay for: in this case a technically shoddy, low-key melodrama with little to recommend it besides an offbeat cast. It was presented at the time as a technological breakthrough, but it's safe to say there were still a few bugs to be worked out of the process: in the late 1980s high-definition video still equaled low-definition film, and the eyesore of too many blurred movements distracts attention away from the story itself. Which may be a blessing in disguise, because the story is just an extended Twilight Zone episode, portentous to the point of self-parody, about a widow of six years who shifts between her lonely life and an alternate reality where her husband is alive, along with the child she never had. Has she suddenly awakened from six years of retroactive amnesia, or is she only hallucinating? The film (can we call it that?) was a big hit in Italy, so maybe it suffers in translation.

At the heart of the story is Juliet's gliding back and forth between parallel realities and parallel destinies. The script resolves the ending very elegantly, when I'm a bit lost as to which version of life we are in. This is typically a story that inspires me, makes me think. I wonder if the other Juliet experienced things in a similar way on the other side? Or: I should write a novel in which the two characters leave a diary to each other, and help each other this way.

Another thought: Sting plays a very aggressive character. It's very odd today, repulsive, but I don't think the metoo has done away with this male type as an ideal.

The film doesn't delve into anything deep, but maybe that's why it manages to remain inspiring. It leaves room for the imagination.