Julia (2008)

74% of critics liked it
(53 reviews)
61% of users liked it
(16,859 ratings)

Tilda Swinton stars in director Erick Zonca's drama about a 40-year-old alcoholic who, in a rare moment of sobriety, sees where her life is headed and makes one last-ditch attempt to steer herself away from the disastrous path that she has been locked on for as far back as she can remember. Julia… More Tilda Swinton stars in director Erick Zonca's drama about a 40-year-old alcoholic who, in a rare moment of sobriety, sees where her life is headed and makes one last-ditch attempt to steer herself away from the disastrous path that she has been locked on for as far back as she can remember. Julia may be manipulative, notoriously untrustworthy, and completely incapable of uttering any word that isn't an outright lie, but somehow -- perhaps due to sheer charisma -- this statuesque deceiver has always managed to get by. But Julia has been hardened by too many vodkas and too many one-night stands, and lately the lonely life of drifting from job to job in her 1979 Chrysler New Yorker has left her wanting something more. While her old boyfriend Mitch occasionally tries to break through Julia's haze, lately she has surrendered herself to the fact that she is simply one of life's losers. As her finances begin to run short and panic begins to set in, a desperate Julia turns to crime but is forced to go on the run with a young boy named Tom after her plan falls hopelessly apart. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: R, 2 hr. 18 min.
Directed By: Erick Zonca
Written By: Aude Py, Erick Zonca
Genres: Drama, Art House & International, Mystery & Suspense

In Theaters: May 8, 2009 Wide
On DVD: Aug 18, 2009
Studio: Magnolia Pictures

Critic Reviews

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
In a sense, it goes to all the places a sensitive character study might have gone, but more dramatically, convincingly and vividly.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
A nerve-wracking thriller with a twisty plot and startling realism.
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
This is Zonca's second feature. His first, The Dreamlife of Angels, was extraordinary. Rent that one instead.
Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times
We never get a good look at her demons, just the havoc they wreak.
Kyle Smith, New York Post
Picture Fargo played with no sense of comedy, and you'll get some idea of the absurdity of this drunken floozy, clicking and wobbling on high heels, often with bits of her anatomy hanging out, trying to pull off the perfect crime.
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger
Like any beautiful, heartbreaking wreck -- we can never take our eyes off Julia. Or the fierce and uncompromising actress bringing her to awful, astonishing life.
Wesley Lovell, Oscar Guy
Tilda Swinton's strong central performance saves an otherwise routine drug drama.
Prairie Miller, NewsBlaze
Swinton masterfully pours much more than her heart into her drunken damsel in distress role, in this gin drenched drama. But the audience is unfortunately left to languish without a clue, as to how she ended up that way and who she may be when sober.
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com
It's simply impossible to imagine Eric Zonca's Julia, a noirish thriller and sharp character study inspired by Cassavetes' Gloria, without Tilda Swinton, who dominates the film from start to finish.
Phil Hall, EDGE Boston
One should hope Tilda Swinton has a good dental plan - it will come in handy when the time comes to pry out the scenery she aggressively chomps.
Peter Keough, Boston Phoenix
In Erick Zonca's tense and juicy noir, Tilda Swinton plays the title role with a crusty panache matched only by her matted, flaming-red thatch of hair (a character in its own right).
Pete Hammond, Hollywood.com
Tilda Swinton is electrifying in this riveting, knock-your-socks-off crime thriller that is just about as intense as movies get.
Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
Charles Bukowski would have loved this foul-mouthed, fiery, reckless woman. Against all odds and common sense, you will, too.
Paul Chambers, CNNRadio
The plot is over-the-top, but Swinton makes you stay with the film long after the writer/director loses credibility.
Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
A dizzying, camptastic explosion of pulp-realist aesthetics and performance, Julia wins Tilda Swinton another Oscar in my wildest dreams.
Jordan Hoffman, UGO
I salute the film's bravery for rushing off at full force on its own stream-of-consciousness logic, but for me, I found the final stages perhaps a tad too far-fetched.
Beverly Berning, culturevulture.net
I recommend going to see it, but don't blame me when you feel like you've downed a fifth of vodka afterwards.
Amber Wilkinson, Eye for Film
Swinton is mesmerising as a messed-up drunk.
Chris Cabin, Filmcritic.com
a tonally-consistent, lively thriller that is very much of the filmmaker's own little corner of the world
William Thomas, Empire Magazine
This is not really sure what it wants to be, an out-an-out thriller or a character portrait, but it exels at both in parts.

Read all 21 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Bruce B

This film is put out by Magnolia Home Ent. Julia is an alcoholic who meets a women who lives across from her that want's Julia to kidnap her son from his grandfather for $50,000 dollars. Julia does everything wrong. After winding up in Mexico, the child she kidnaps is kidnap by… More
This film is put out by Magnolia Home Ent. Julia is an alcoholic who meets a women who lives across from her that want's Julia to kidnap her son from his grandfather for $50,000 dollars. Julia does everything wrong. After winding up in Mexico, the child she kidnaps is kidnap by Mexicans mean while 2 million dollars is on the way to the airport. In the end what does Julia end up with, if I tell you that it wouldn't be worth watching. A good one to see at home by yourself cause 7 out of 10 people would not enjoy it. 3 stars
Robert C

What a performance! Tilda Swinton really "knocks it out of the park" here as the tragic Julia. I wish I could say that alcoholism was her only problem, but by the end of this film I was convinced that her "issues" ran much deeper and that and that the booze was… More
What a performance! Tilda Swinton really "knocks it out of the park" here as the tragic Julia. I wish I could say that alcoholism was her only problem, but by the end of this film I was convinced that her "issues" ran much deeper and that and that the booze was just her way of "self medicating". In any case it is a highly engaging look at what desperate people will do to avoid (the sometimes brutal reality of) life. It does (at times) feel a bit over the top, but when you consider the fact that there are actually people out there living life in this manner... I kept reminding myself that,what is "crazy" to us is simply someone elses reality.
Randy T

I'll admit, I've done some pretty stupid things in the haze of a drunken stupor. I went for a walk in my underwear. I climbed a four story water tower to paint 'class of 1980'. I even woke up in the middle of a cemetery with a wreath around my neck that said… More
I'll admit, I've done some pretty stupid things in the haze of a drunken stupor. I went for a walk in my underwear. I climbed a four story water tower to paint 'class of 1980'. I even woke up in the middle of a cemetery with a wreath around my neck that said 'Rest In Peace'. But I've never been so intoxicated that I thought that kidnapping an eight year old boy and running off to Tijuana was a good idea. This little gem of a film works because it's performance driven. Tilda Swinton and Kate del Castillo shine. Not since <i>The Lost Weekend</i> have I felt this much empathy for such self destructive characters. A memorable, memorable motion picture.
William S

As shamelessly biased as I am towards the monumental abilities of our transcendent goddess of cinephilia that is La Tilda of Swinton, I was still a little in awe of her raw, not to mention brave, performance as Julia. She is utterly convincing as, let's be honest here, a quite a… More
As shamelessly biased as I am towards the monumental abilities of our transcendent goddess of cinephilia that is La Tilda of Swinton, I was still a little in awe of her raw, not to mention brave, performance as Julia. She is utterly convincing as, let's be honest here, a quite a repulsive woman. Someone who, at the very least, is profoundly flawed - a self-centred alcoholic lush who cares about no-one and wears her propensity towards self-destruction on her sleeve. Who then goes one step further towards obliterating any last vestiges of sympathy she may have elicited from the people around her and us, the audience, by doing the unthinkable - kidnapping a child for ransom. If that isn't bad enough, the rough treatment she metes out on the boy verges on cruelty and spite and her carelessness with him is unflinching (locking him in the boot of her car till he shits himself, screaming obscenities at him while waving a gun in his face, gagging him and leaving him tied to the radiator of the motel room, abandoning him in the Mexican desert at night). It's deeply upsetting to watch and you wonder how you can engage with this mascara smeared devil. And yet, yes, we are still rooting for her?? Highsmith fans will be smacking their chops with relish. It's not until the last 40 minutes or so, when the mother instinct breaks through the seemingly hard-as-nails but still very brittle exterior, that her humanity and compassion spills out at last. (It's been an emotional slog getting there so our relief is palpable). As she awakes (from a night of filth with her Mexican trick) and her poor wretched captive tyke is lead in to her, bathed in the warm orange and yellow glows of a South American sunrise, the dispossessed lush and motherless son seem to bond. It's a profoundly moving scene (reminding me a little of the restorative feel that the later scenes in 'Irreversible' invoked) and just about stops you wanting to kick Julia into submission. Can Julia redeem herself? Unfortunately for them, it may be too late for redemption as events take a terrible turn and spiral even further out of Julia's control. Will anyone get out of this one alive? The ending is frustratingly abrupt but also kind of perfect - I'd love to know how things panned out. But whatever happens next is a whole different story of course and nothing is better than imagination for filling in the gaps.
Drew S

Tilda Swinton is a beast. Performance of the year thus far, and almost certainly unlikely to be topped. Put this alongside anything else she's ever done and you will be stunned by the radical differences; normally asked to be (or at the very least appear to be) stately and… More
Tilda Swinton is a beast. Performance of the year thus far, and almost certainly unlikely to be topped. Put this alongside anything else she's ever done and you will be stunned by the radical differences; normally asked to be (or at the very least appear to be) stately and composed, she is a degenerate, crumbling sexpot here, a mess of half-broken physicality and shallow swaggering. A viewer is given very little backstory, but Swinton offers us a wealth of imaginative detail that allow us to paint a vivid portrait of this woman. Assuredly, Julia has led a life that was once entitled and thrilling, but that has slowly hit the deep end as she ages. She barely seems capable of picking up the pieces, let alone orchestrating a complex kidnapping plot. But she has her strengths - she's a devious and masterful improviser, has no qualms about lying, and is infinitely more lucky than she claims to be - and through virtue of all this she manages to take us through two hours of her criminal antics. Her audacity is so bottomless that the movie, even as it gets more and more convoluted in its twilight hours, remains compelling. Eventually your head is completely under the surface right there with Julia, but the fun of it all is seeing whether or not she can pull you out. I'm not necessarily sure I'd call this character complex, but she is bizarre, and most importantly she is completely believable. Well, "believable"; it's horrifying to think that any human would sink to the depths that Julia does, and yet that's exactly what we watch her do, for two and a half hours. Swinton perfectly embodies this alcoholic floozy, and though I'd never really call her sympathetic, she's always interesting, which is never a bad thing in a movie. Julia is a film that's constantly changing its face, and Swinton is its anchor. You could call it a thriller, crime drama, or character portrait, and in its slight longwindedness it's all of these things, but as a whole it floats above conventional genre labels. It's really a highwire act, a personification of a woman living on the edge of her seat, and a challenging project for any viewer who's willing to learn about a generally unlikable but enthralling character.
Derek D

Tilda Swinton is excellent in this...kind of like a new-age Bad Lieutenant with Tilda going from one smoking and drinking binge to another until she agrees to kidnap a lady's son and deliver him to his multi-millionnaire grandfather from $2 million. The movie starts off… More
Tilda Swinton is excellent in this...kind of like a new-age Bad Lieutenant with Tilda going from one smoking and drinking binge to another until she agrees to kidnap a lady's son and deliver him to his multi-millionnaire grandfather from $2 million. The movie starts off interesting enough, but loses steam - and believability - consistently throughout. They both get kidnapped, she loses and finds him several times and the film just seems to drag on even beyond it's almost 2 1/2 hours.
Gordon A

Swinton bids for Oscar glory playing a walking car crash alcoholic pathological liar. Character building first half leads in to a less satisfactory kidnap thriller which is rather drawn out and overly contrived. The developing relationship between Swinton and her young kidnapee is… More
Swinton bids for Oscar glory playing a walking car crash alcoholic pathological liar. Character building first half leads in to a less satisfactory kidnap thriller which is rather drawn out and overly contrived. The developing relationship between Swinton and her young kidnapee is interesting.
Mike N

This movie is all Tilda Swinton. Well, okay, and a great forward-momentum narrative that hurtles through the plot much further than you'd ever expect it to. Tilda Swinton is Julia, an aging alcoholic living like a youthful partier despite being about 15 years too old for it.… More
This movie is all Tilda Swinton. Well, okay, and a great forward-momentum narrative that hurtles through the plot much further than you'd ever expect it to. Tilda Swinton is Julia, an aging alcoholic living like a youthful partier despite being about 15 years too old for it. The movie's engaging fascination is watching just how anarchically out-of-control Julia goes from binge to binge. Between her liquor-induced histrionics and bitter moments of sobriety that still seem suspicious drunken, her latest foible for a quick fix - another well of money to quaff from - is a loosely-planned kidnapping scheme of a rich guy's kid, and it doesn't take long for it to spiral madly out of her grasp, ballooning into an incident beyond anybody's expectations. The ensuing saga eventually carries Julia from San Diego to Tijuana with the kidnapped boy. Gradually, the viewer sees a kind of intensifying sincere desperation for when the kid she 'napped is under various new threats, especially after they get to Mexico, revealing that she may care more than she, or us, thought she might. Though the editing was a little uneven - from being a belligerent cartoon alcoholic one scene jumping to quiet calmness the next (Me: "Uh, I guess that scene resolved itself, then.") - and her character transformation was rushed towards the climax, the movie is nevertheless a great exercise in escalating tension and a true showcase of an actress absolutely in the zone. I felt Swinton was a relatively undeserving Oscar winner for Michael Clayton, but it feels much better now after she got jobbed in even getting buzz for this otherwise little-known indie gem.
Walter M

[font=Century Gothic]In "Julia," every night is party night for Julia Harris(Tilda Swinton) as she drinks heavily, blacks out and goes home with a different man every night. And some times, she does not even make it that far. Her friend Mitch(Saul Rubinek), himself a… More
[font=Century Gothic]In "Julia," every night is party night for Julia Harris(Tilda Swinton) as she drinks heavily, blacks out and goes home with a different man every night. And some times, she does not even make it that far. Her friend Mitch(Saul Rubinek), himself a recovering alcoholic, has had it with her atrocious behavior, having gotten her a job at a real estate office that she promptly loses by drinking in the middle of the day. He advises her to attend a meeting which she does for a little while until she becomes nauseous from the goodwill. It is there that she meets Elena(Kate del Castillo) who enlists her to help her get her son Thomas(Aidan Gould) back from his grandfather for $50,000. That's not enough for Julia as she tries to enlist her old friend Nick(Jude Ciccolella) to double cross her but he is smart enought to decline. At least, Leon(Eugene Byrd) is willing to sell her a gun...[/font] [font=Century Gothic]Tilda Swinton is an extraordinary actress with a regal presence in all of the films she does but with "Julia," a riveting if overlong character study, she turns it up a notch by fully inhabiting a character that is one step above the gutter and so self-centered that she cannot see the harm she is doing to herself or others for that matter. Telling the story entirely from Julia's point of view is a bit tricky because it obscures the fact that maybe she is the real villain of the piece. It is amazing that Julia has gotten this far without getting AIDS, killing somebody in a car accident or any other form of rock bottom that would make her rethink her life which might be impossible since she is living entirely in the present. Julia has trust issues but they come from her trusting too easily. Her basic survival possibly comes down to pure luck but how long can that last?[/font]
Jeffrey M

As almost everyone that has seen this film would say, the most notable thing about it is the remarkable performance from Tilda Swinton. She completely inhibits her character, it was a genuinely chilling depiction of an seemingly amoral alcoholic. It was so good, in fact, that it… More
As almost everyone that has seen this film would say, the most notable thing about it is the remarkable performance from Tilda Swinton. She completely inhibits her character, it was a genuinely chilling depiction of an seemingly amoral alcoholic. It was so good, in fact, that it reminded me almost of Charlize Theron's performance in Monster, which Ebert rightfully called "one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema," Swinton seems to have the same versatility and depth the Theron has. The film also has merit in that its very effective as a thriller in addition to a character study. Though the plot is far-fetched, its filmed and acted in such a manner that it has a sense of realism, and is always engaging with its relentless pace. What keeps it from being a truly great film, however, are some notable plot holes (one major character simply disappears with no explanation) and an unsatisfactory ending. 4/5 Stars
Brian R

A stunning performance from Tilda Swinton, she's an actress who isn't afraid to go for broke. Her character is seen as an alcholic low-life on the verge of humility. It's only when she agrees to kidnap a young child her personality changes with great warmth and empathy.
Daisy M

Julia was a drama thriller directed by for me unknown Erick Zonica. Tilda Swinton was amazing in her role as the ,sexy crazy alcoholic woman.In one of her meetings at the AA she met Elena who asked her to help her kidnapped her son Tom, from his rich grandfather.Julia who was so… More
Julia was a drama thriller directed by for me unknown Erick Zonica. Tilda Swinton was amazing in her role as the ,sexy crazy alcoholic woman.In one of her meetings at the AA she met Elena who asked her to help her kidnapped her son Tom, from his rich grandfather.Julia who was so desperate for money, agreed and that triggered the rest of the movies journey through crime, suspense as Julia failed to play the game of criminal, cause she started to feel affection for the boy. Aiden Gould played the role of Tom very well. Although I liked the movie, I found it too long, and also some scenes in Tijuana Mexico was sometimes beyond belief. But overall it was very entertaining.
Tobias X

This film ventures into some disturbing places. Took me a little by surprise. Tilda Swinton made me so uncomfortable as the damaged and despicable title character, she's so believable. She's one of the bravest actresses around for sure. Best 'manic woman under the… More
This film ventures into some disturbing places. Took me a little by surprise. Tilda Swinton made me so uncomfortable as the damaged and despicable title character, she's so believable. She's one of the bravest actresses around for sure. Best 'manic woman under the influence' since Gena Rowlands circa 1974. The spirit of Cassavetes is alive and well in director Erick Zonca.
Sarah B

Bar the two stand-out performances from the boy and Swinton, this film underperforms. I guess I had too high expectations because I was waiting for a tour de force of a performance that never came. I just didn't believe anything that happened. Plus it reminded me too much of Burn… More
Bar the two stand-out performances from the boy and Swinton, this film underperforms. I guess I had too high expectations because I was waiting for a tour de force of a performance that never came. I just didn't believe anything that happened. Plus it reminded me too much of Burn After Reading, other than the plot, the main character manages to screw everything up, get people hurt or killed and is totally self-centred. No redeeming features whatsoever.