The media frenzy is in full swing at this time of year with Oscar conversations even higher on the agenda than they would normally be, given this season’s three-week lighter run than previous years.
One thing never far away from the topic of the Oscars is a “comeback”, be it to the Oscars themselves or Hollywood as a whole. From Robert Downey Jr’s 2009 nomination for “Tropic Thunder” six years after going sober, to Michael Keaton’s career being almost brought back to life following the success of “Birdman”, to the “McConaissance”, and to Glenn Close’s nomination (and near-miss) this year following seven years away for the screen legend. Hollywood and the Academy, to put it simply, love a good story. It almost comes across as the Academy feeling a responsibility to be the pot of gold at the end of a “re-birth”, “career-altering trajectory” etc.
However, this season’s subject and story feels different.
Renée Zellweger’s return to the Oscar circuit in “Judy” feels less like the manufactured media-driven rhetoric of other years. Her impassionate embodiment of legendary performer Judy Garland, both delicate and intricate as it is, is less Zellweger as we’ve never seen her and more Zellweger as we haven’t seen her in a while. This is not your standard Hollywood comeback story, it’s a mere reminder of the insatiable talent that Zellweger showcases almost every time she’s on-screen.
From her starring zany role in Neil LaBute’s 2001 blackest of comedies “Nurse Betty”, which earned her the first of three golden globe wins, to her most iconic role of Bridget Jones, a character that has earned cult status since Zellweger first brought her to the screen in 2001, landing her a best actress nomination in the process, there are no shortage of reminders throughout her career that she is the shining light in anything she’s in. Be it her scene-stealing, and ultimately Oscar-winning turn as the fast-talking, oozing with energy Ruby Thewes in Anthony Minghella’s “Cold Mountain” or her stirring performance as Roxie Hart in Rob Marshall’s “2002” take on “Chicago”.
And even her absence from the big screen was nothing to do with the cutthroat nature of Hollywood, it was a self-enforced break, that she herself says enabled her to “go away and grow up a bit”.
And this growth is fully on display in her future Oscar-nominated performance in “Judy”. Of course, it showcases the Zellweger already mentioned above, but her performance also feels as if it carries a newfound reflectiveness, almost a dual notion of both Zellweger as Garland looking back on her career and Zellweger as herself, from breakout star to Hollywood A-List, to present day.
Quite simply unlike what could be viewed as the usual conveyer belt of comebacks, designed to make audiences feel for Hollywood mega-stars, Renée Zellweger’s re-introduction to the mainstream conversation is un-ambiguously on her own terms. A trait shared with the great performer she effortlessly embodies.
Does her second Oscar await?
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.