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When we first meet Julia (Tilda Swinton), glass in hand and tucked into a sequin dress, she's caterwauling with friends and more than enough men. A man asks her what she does and she answers, 'I make dreams come true' and in a way, she's quite right. To a boozy stockbroker or a lawyer who just won a big case, having this neon, leggy beast crawl up your lap may be exactly what you hoped for. But then, as always, the morning comes, along with a dry mouth, disheveled clothes, and breath that could kill a pack of bison from 15 feet away.
Fired from her job and unable to cope with the sycophants at AA, she quickly accepts the harebrained plot cooked up by her neighbor (an outstanding Kate de Castillo) and the promised 50 grand that goes along with it. Following the spiked instincts of the character, the director orchestrates a harrowing kidnapping that climaxes with Julia running over a man -- twice. Turning her back on the neighbor and frantically trying to broker her own deal, she ends up in Tijuana with the child (Aidan Gould) where her lust for a tall glass of gin leads to another kidnapping.
When she kidnaps the boy, Julia wears a black mask that the neighbor has given her; a pointless prop seeing as no one really sees the same Julia. She's too guarded and too blasted to ever let anyone see the damage done. To her sponsor Mitch (the excellent character actor Saul Rubinek), she is a wanton pity case with a killer set of heels; to the boy, she is one tough mother. Swinton takes the role into her as if it were a vodka tonic poured with a heavy hand, gulping it down and letting it burn her insides before she finds herself in Mexico with something resembling a relationship with the young boy. I'd say it was one of Swinton's better performances, but the actress has surpassed this before. Her roles only range from good to riveting now, Julia being closer to the latter.
Zonca, following his 1998 cult art-flick The Dreamlife of Angels, makes unpredictable choices throughout Julia's journey, which plays like Gloria retooled by Alejandro González Iñárritu. His influences are obvious and it's a bit overlong at nearly 150 minutes, but the French-born director has crafted a tonally-consistent, lively thriller that is very much of the filmmaker's own little corner of the world. The mistakes made by Julia are so stupid and their repercussions so harsh that they earn credibility; one of the most remarkable things about the film is that they don't sober Julia up or try to redeem her until the very last seconds. A kidnapper tells her that they should work together, to which the lady responds, 'I wouldn't wipe my ass with you,' which I would like to believe is true. Swinton peers directly into the abyss and never softens her spitfire, and Zonca leads her down a twisting, thicket-covered path where the correct steps are not easy. And why should they be? Redemption is a harsh road.
The DVD includes deleted scenes.
