one of my absolute favorites!

Best movie of this year hands down!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Julia (Tilda Swinton) is a drunk...a falling down drunk in fact. She is a total mess. She's in such a mess that she loses her job, drinks constantly and wakes up with god knows who next to her. At an AA meeting, her very odd neighbor, Elena, meets up with her and offers her a proposition....kidnap her son from the grandfather and she'll pay Julia $50,000 for the child! Julia has her own plans but almost from the very beginning, Julia screws up....and this happens so often that it's shocking to see she's not caught immediately!For Tilda Swinton, "Julia" was a great film. It allowed her a great chance to act, as she was THE center of attention the entire movie and it also gave her the opportunity to play a really unusual character. So, as far as she goes, she did a good job and should be proud of her achievement. Unfortunately, while it is an interesting portrait of a screwy character, the film is also overly long and could have used some editing. This is especially apparent after the kidnapping, where the film just seems to meander. I found myself just wanting it to end after a while...even in spite of Swinton's great job in the lead.

"Julia" starring Tilda Swinton has an excellent first 1/4 going for it. It was on par with Leaving Las Vegas which surely it draws some parallels to until (big spoiler) the whole kidnapping fiasco. For me at this point the film dives into main-stream shtick ceasing to carry the careful nuances of a character development into unfortunately a gimmicky, sometimes, violent, but clichéd chase film. At this point the movie pretty much lost me full force. There may be an original story director Erick Zonca is following, but as the director, was hoping he elected to keep the title character more static in an introspective investigation rather than a moving and jarring rush and hullabaloo. By the end of the movie, the thing has become a mess a distant whimper of how interesting it started out as.

Tilda Swinton is one of cinema's finest actors. She has quite a resume. She can do just about anything ... except for an American accent. Combine the exaggerated r's and overly-wrung pronunciations with endless hysteria, Swinton overplays her hand with this role. On one hand, it's a bravura performance. But by half way I had to hit pause to take a break from the shrieking. Swinton has such difficult time with the accent that the demands of screaming and yelling make her become grating. I blame the director. He is not an actor's director. Another actor, Kate del Castillo, gives one of the most annoying performances of all time. It is simply atrocious. The rest of the cast fares much better. Despite my reservations about Swinton's accent and outsized performance, she does prevail. By the end, her character softens considerably and Swinton is allowed to shine. The director comes through, too with a fine second half and saves the movie. Too bad about the first half.

Solid movie. First of all, excellent acting of the female lead. I was impressed when read that the actress has never drunk a glass of liquor and we got to say that she was so convincing as alcoholic. Then, the movie itself deserves attention, it has solid dynamic plot and good story. What I don't like about this movie is passive camera that is following the heroine behind every corner through long shots as well as limited interaction with other characters. Also, I believe that ending supposed to be a little bit more sophisticated, refined in a film way. However, I do not agree that is unclear since we know all the time what is Julia's reason for kidnapping: she has no Acapulco or Swiss Bank plans, she does that to change her life. When she figured out that the kidnapped boy have already changed her life pretty much, he becomes more valuable reward.