Judy Berlin

In a day of eclipse in Babylon Village, in New York, the thirty-two year-old aspirant actress Judy Berlin (Edie Falco) is moving to California expecting to make her dream come true. Her mother Suzan 'Sue' Berlin (Barbara Barrie) is a bitter school teacher that likes to flirt with the principal Arthur Gold (Bob Dishy), who is married with the housewife Alice Gold (Madeline Kahn) that is close to a breakdown. Their thirty year-old son David Gold (Aaron Harnick) has just moved back home after a frustrating experience as filmmaker. While wandering on the street, David meets Judy who studied with him in the elementary school and they spend the day together. Meanwhile the confused Arthur kisses Sue during the eclipse.

"Judy Berlin" is a delightful low-budget movie with entwined stories in the suburb of Babylon. The performances are excellent, disclosing the intimacy of the characters in a realistic way. This movie was released in Brazil on VHS by Cult Films Distributor. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Judy Berlin"

This is the neglected gem of last year, and in my estimation the best film of the year.

Think of it as a middle-class Ice Storm, but while the upper-class suburbanites of Ice Storm were too distant and unreal to care about, the middle-class lives depicted in Judy Berlin are very real and both heart-breakingly sad and genuinely funny (without caricature or directorial mocking). I've often heard the phrase laughing through tears, but never experienced it until seeing this film.

The performances are without exception incisive and dead-on. Of particular note: the counterpoint of Aaron Harnick's sad, lost David and the open-faced lifeforce that is Edie Falco's Judy; Barbara Barrie's portrait of a loving schoolteacher -- with an edge; Bob Dishy's sullen and conflicted Arthur, among the most subtle work in this usually comic actor's long career; and Madelyn Kahn in her final film role, touching and hilarious (as always) as a housewife on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Her scene when she encounters her psychiatrist while aimlessly wandering the streets during the eclipse, and manages to offer him words of comfort, is the film's defining moment -- a film of beautifully etched characters behaving in very real yet very surprising ways in moments of conflict filled with shades of gray.

Speaking of which, the film is shot brilliantly in black and white to point up both the beauty and the horror of this suburban landscape.

However did this film languish on a shelf for two years? If film scripts were eligible for Pulitzer Prizes, Eric Mendelsohn's would have surely been a contender.

This film has a quiet beauty and some very wonderful performances. However, the poetry of the movie is too disjointed for my personal taste. I understand the ideas the director is going for, but I felt the movie lacked enough charm to pull it off. The dialogue has moments of reality, yet often tries too hard for truth, missing the mark. This is a very artistic effort, not meant for the average movie-goer. With a bit more practice and polish, the director could one day be quite great. He needs to stop imitating others and find his own voice.

I was torn between admiring it's gentility and screaming to have the monotony end! That is real life, isn't it? Sometimes moments last too long and others pass too quickly.

It is a film for film lovers, yet needs a tighter reining by the editor/director.

After reading all the reviews of people complaining about either how pretentious or boring "Judy Berlin" was, I just had to write something about how incredible this movie is. It is the complete opposite of pretension. Real people, living real lives, catching us up in their emotion as we recognize and identify with their loneliness. I just don't get how this is pretentious. Perhaps it could be because "pretentious" is a word most people throw around to sound smart without knowing what it means. "Pi" is pretentious, "Judy Berlin" is not. Filled to the brim with haunting and incredible performances, it evokes Allen's more insightful dramas, such as "Interiors," as well as Ingmar Bergman's best work. And yet, Bergman is not in style now. Mass culture goes more for the insane mind-benders, like "Fight Club" and "Being John Malkovich." Even though both were great movies, "Judy Berlin" is better. It is an exploration of the souls of a small town. Madeline Kahn, Edie Falco, Barbara Barrie, and Bob Dishy are all superb, completely immersing themselves in their roles. Not to mention the gorgeous cinematography or the incredible harpsichord soundtrack. "Judy Berlin" has a lot to say, if you'll just listen to it.

In a film full of wonderful, low-key performances by actors playing lonely, unhappy characters, Madeline Kahn is the standout as a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Unlike any other performance she gave in film, Kahn -- known for her comic roles -- turns in a marvelous, dramatic turn that should have netted her a posthomous Academy Award nomination. She is simply brilliant, and she should have been given a lot more dramatic roles in her career. After all, they say that comedy is the hardest thing for an actor to do, and with all the great comic roles she had -- in "Paper Moon," "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein," just to name a few -- directors should have known that behind those funny faces was a great actress who could play any role.