Julia

Aug. 26, 2009 (Journal Notes)
Sue and I watched a gripping, nerve-wracking drama last night about a crazy, off-the-wall alcoholic woman who drank every night and slept with any man who’ll buy her drinks. The name of the movie is “Julia,” and stars Tilda Swinton who won an Academy Award a couple of years ago for her performance in “Michael Clayton.” Julia meets a Mexican American woman at an AA meeting who tries to persuade her to help her kidnap her 8 year old son who has been living with his rich grandfather who happens to be a gangster. She dismisses the idea as absurd, sheer foolishness dreamt up by a desperate woman anxious to get her son back. The woman offers her half of the ransom money they could obtain from the rich old man. But as Julia thinks about what the money could do for her, she begins to reconsider; it could help her get off this merry-go-round to nowhere. So she decides to do it, but to do it without the mother. She tries to talk an old lover into going in with her, but he refuses, seeing it as a crazy idea. But she goes ahead on her own; she kidnaps the boy, kills his caretaker by running over his body with her car, the first of two murders she commits in pursuit of the ransom money. But the next hour or so of the movie is so full of ups and downs you get dizzy watching her flail her away through one crisis after another.
A sub-plot to the kidnapping caper is her relationship with the boy. At first he is just an object she needs to manipulate with little thought about his comfort or feelings; it is also perfectly obvious she knows absolutely nothing about kids. But gradually she realizes he is a human being and so she begins to soften up toward him, as he does toward her, as he realizes she is the only ally he has in the mess they are both in. Eventually, they become quite close, even cuddly and affectionate. This development is handled quite nicely; what happens between the two of them is the only real positive in a story otherwise full of negatives. In effect, she becomes his mother, at least until they unite with his real mother in Mexico.
The worse crisis that occurs toward the end of the film is the boy is kidnapped by a couple of young Mexican lads in Tijuana. She kills a Taxi Driver acting as their messenger. She meant to only scare the guy but the gun went off as she was waving it at him. She finally wrestles the cash from the grandfather, a cool $2,000,000. She plans to keep half of it, but she runs into a snag. The boys want all of it, otherwise no boy. So it becomes her Sophie’s Choice: What’s more important, the money or the safety of the boy? She opts for the boy. The Mexican lad with the money drives off beside himself with joy, with $2,000,000 in the back seat. Somehow, given the cutthroat world he lives in, one doubts it will be in his possession very long. In any event, free at last the boy gives Julia a big hug; he is so happy to be reunited with her. A last moment of regret flashes across her face, but then she looks down at the boy and says, “Let’s go find a mother.”
I like “Julia,” not only because Tilda Swinton is an accomplished and nuanced actress, but also because I liked the process she went through to let the money go in order to save the boy and therefore save her own soul; it was a byproduct of the choice, its truth and consequence. That decision, to love the boy rather than sell him as piece of meat in the black market, allowed her to also love herself, which upped her self-esteem. She had none of at the beginning of the story.