Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Scotty Burke It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

movies-by-db Wow, what a riveting watch.. It had me completely captivated from start to finish. Tilda Swinton's performance of the titular character is so good and believable it just hurts to watch. She is a timebomb, an avalanche waiting to happen a plane on it's way down, ready to crash and burn. She's extremely sexy, yet you wouldn't even touch her with a shovel. Tilda Swinton is the film.Opportunity comes knocking when Julia meets a neighbour at an AA meeting. A way to possibly fix some of her (financial) problems and extend her endless party, 'cause that's all Julia does. Get into trouble and party. However this opportunity offered is so twisted and so improbable it's more likely to be a shortcut to her inevitable demise.I can't stop ranting on about this performance from Tilda Swinton. It's so pure, so convincing. I absolutely love her. I would want to take this character under my wing and gently nurse her back to sanity. Just like her her friend Mitch (played perfectly by Saul Rubinek) wants to do. She almost meets her equal in the neighbour Elena, an also stunning performance by Kate del Castillo. Almost like adding one volatile chemical to another. She just drove me crazy, but in a good way. A mentally unstable damaged woman that, you know, can not be good for Julia.What kind of film is this.. Is it black comedy? Is it tragicomedy? It's like a Coen brothers film doused in alcohol, bleach and a hefty dose of realism and with such a performance by the lead I'm amazed I didn't hear from this earlier on. In it's sadness and tragedy and insanity the only other film you could compare this with is Keane by Lodge Kerrigan. Very highly recommended 8/10

AaronLYM I think Tilda Swinton is fabulous in this movie. Her portrayal of Julia is really dramatic and real. During the early stages of the movie, I kind of despised Julia, and found her to be such an unpleasant woman. The way she treats Mitch is truly ungrateful and I think he's wasting his efforts to help her. There are two things which I really liked in this movie. The first thing relates to Julia. Initially, Julia's intention with the kidnapping was purely about the money. She even thought of double crossing Elena. But along the way, I think she found her heart and conscience. The boy helped to change her from a selfish person, to a caring and motherly human being. More importantly, Julia finally cherished life more than what money had to offer. And the second thing I really liked relates to Mitch. Learning from his own past experience, Mitch really cares for Julia and tries to help her in anyway possible. His loyalty as a friend is truly unshakable. Despite all of Julia's heinous acts, he still doesn't give up on her and is willing to overlook her wrongdoings and help her even more. Even towards the end, Mitch still believes that Julia can be a better person and gives her another chance to make things right. I find all this to be really touching. Ultimately, I enjoyed this movie and found it to be a story about soul searching, redemption and friendship.

catsklgd1 Julia is a schizophrenic piece of filmmaking if ever there was one. It can't decide whether or not it's a serious drama or a dark comedy. Only a terrific performance by Tilda Swinton in the lead part and a couple of decent bit part performances by American and foreign actors are all that save this pathetic film from rating just one star instead of the three that I mercifully gave it. In fact, the performance by the actress that played the boy's mother bordered on a caricature. Oh sure, there were some decent scenes, but the time between them was filled with inane dialog and implausible plot faults. There were too many unexplained lapses in continuity, including an absurd sequence of events in the Southern California/Mexican desert. The story is so improbable as to be ridiculous and the script is uneven and fractured. I will admit that the cinematography is decent, as is the editing. But to rate this film any more than three stars would be to offer a disservice to those films that actually "earned" a rating that was higher than that. Except for Ms. Swinton's excellent performance as a disjointed, delusional, dysfunctional alcoholic, Julia was a complete waste of this viewer's time.

secondtake Julia (2008)A hard edged tale of a woman pushed by her own desperation into crimes over her head. Tilda Swinton lets it rip here, in a vivid, color, cinema-verite style that depends as much on making you uneasy as anything. The characters are so believable, and the sequence of events stumbles along with such perfect inelegance (to say the least), you hate to see it all because what happens is pretty awful. The ground covered is a believable version of what an ordinary person with seemingly good moral structure is driven to by circumstance. In this case, it's about being pushed by her own sorry life to do something that breaks out of it. But it also begins as a curious compassion, a genuine skepticism overwhelmed by the possibilities. By thinking, why not? And of course, why not then becomes all too clear. It's this sense that it could by a stretch happen to you or me (hopefully not, but in theory) that gives the movie its chilling penetration.And the ending, as sensational as it gets, is a logical outcome of where we began, and there is a kind of victory, but it's no Hollywood ending, and that's a huge relief. Rather, it's as if you went along with a woman for the adventure of her life and it's the real thing, nothing held back, including disbelief, fear, violence, and sometimes, thankfully, a glimmer of hope. Very very well made--acting, writing, filming--but not everyone's cup of tea because it is so unsettling.