Being Julia [DVD] UK

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In the role that brought her amazing critical acclaim, an Academy Award(r) nomination, the Golden Globe(r) Award and the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress, Annette Bening plays a beautiful and beguiling actress who finds herself bored with her role as the toast of the town in BEING JULIA.Julia Lambert (Bening) is a true diva: beautiful, talented, wealthy and famous. She has it all -- including a devoted husband (Oscar(r) winner Jeremy Irons, 1990 Best Actor, Reversal of Fortune) who has masterminded her brilliant career - but after years of shining in the spotlight she begins to suffer from a severe case of boredom and longs for something new and exciting to put the twinkle back in her eye. Julia finds exactly what she's looking for in a handsome young American fan, but it isn'tlong before the novelty fling adds a few more sparks than she was hoping for. Fortunately for her, this surprise twist in the plot will thrust her back into the greatest role of her life

Annette Bening's outstanding performance is the best reason to see Being Julia, a highly melodramatic adaptation of the 1937 novel Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham. With a prestigious pedigree (director Istvan Szabo and screenwriter Ronald Harwood share impressive theatrical backgrounds) and a stellar cast including Jeremy Irons, Bruce Greenwood, and Juliet Stevenson, the film's backstage and onstage theatrics take place in pre-World War II London, when the venerable actress Julia (Bening) fends off middle-age by romancing a stage-struck young American (Shaun Evans) in a calculated attempt to retain some youthful vitality while airing her own dirty laundry onstage in a glorious act of divine diva behavior. Treating life and theater as one big play in which she's the perpetual star, Julia's nothing if not a master thespian, and Bening's got all the chops to keep her in the spotlight. If the film isn't quite worthy of Bening's excellence, at least it gives her performance the showcase it deserves.