Read The Episode
Every episode of Tasteless, I take a critically acclaimed film and compare it to one that shares the same themes but didn't get the attention it deserves — and explain why that second movie is my pick. This week: two biopics about troubled women with star power and polarizing personalities. It's Judy versus Gia.
Judy
Legendary performer Judy Garland arrives in London in the winter of 1968 to perform a series of sold-out concerts.
This movie came out in 2019 and has an 81% on Rotten Tomatoes. It won an Oscar — Renée Zellweger won for Best Actress, which is why I thought of doing this movie. I was talking about Bombshell last week — Renée Zellweger beat Charlize Theron for Best Actress, but Bombshell won Best Makeup. You win some, you lose some.
I think Renée Zellweger's performance deserves recognition and accolades if for nothing else for the fact that she captured Judy's voice, her singing voice, which is absolutely insane. IMDB trivia tells us that Renée spent a year training with the vocal coach Eric Vetro before shooting began, then rehearsed with musical director Matt Dunkley for four months to master her vocals.
Number one, it's crazy to think about how much time people spend so that they can pretend — so that they can be in a movie. And it makes me wonder: does someone have to have that in them a little bit? We know Renée can sing. She was nominated for an Oscar for Chicago. But if you have the best trainers in the world, can you be trained to do anything? Like if I had four months where I could just do whatever the vocal coach told me, could I get Judy Garland's voice? Or did they pick Renée because they already knew she could tap into it somehow? It's so fascinating to me.
Renée is super talented, comedically delightful, and she really does capture Judy here. I watched a bunch of Judy Garland interviews because one thing I was struck by that didn't quite work for me in the movie, even if it was accurate, was that I was wondering if Judy was so — yuck yuck, hey mister — in real life. In the movie, at one point they say something like, oh, the biggest living legend, and she goes, Frank Sinatra's here? Like, obviously they're talking about her and she's making a joke. I was ready for her to get a cap with a propeller and just start spinning it while shooting both her eyebrows up and down.
There's this very performative, old-school, pratfall-almost type of comedy that Judy does throughout this film. I watched some interviews and you do get that sense a little bit — that she was always on, nothing was ever serious, she had to make a joke out of everything. So it's hard to tell where she's coming from.
As talented as I think Renée is, it's hard when a biopic is being made about someone and their family doesn't necessarily want that. Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland's daughter, did not approve of this movie. Prior to the film's release, Liza stated through her Facebook account that she had never met nor spoken to Renée Zellweger and made it clear she personally did not approve of the project nor sanction it in any way. That's tough. You don't want that to keep us from exploring the lives of people that were such a part of the fabric of culture, but it also does suck. Imagine a movie coming out about your mom at her worst moments and everyone's talking about it and giving it awards. Oh, it was incredible. I cried. Okay, but I lived that. It must be awful.
To make Renée into Judy, makeup designer Jeremy Woodhead had to prosthetically extend the tip of her nose. Dark gray contact lenses were used to approximate Garland's dark brown eyes and a cropped walnut brown wig was fashioned to resemble Garland's iconic hairdo. Walnut is not a sexy color name. Oh, what nice walnut hair you have.
I think the pieces we have chosen of Judy's life to focus on are odd. This film focuses on these last few months of her life in London, and it's such a strange thing to carve out and use to define someone. In this movie, and when she died, Judy was only 47 but she looks 100 years old. I called my mom — she adores this movie, loved Judy Garland — and I was like, why did Judy look 80 years old? And my mom pointed out that not only was she drinking and drugging hard, but people just looked older. If you watch Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Bette Davis looks about 200 years old and was 54. It's so odd to realize she was only 47. That is trash.
Jessie Buckley plays Rosalyn, kind of Judy's only friend in the present-day storyline. She's not even really Judy's friend — she's basically there to keep an eye on her and make sure she gets to the stage each night. Burt is my favorite character. He plays piano for her, played by Royce Pierreson, who was also a hunk in The Witcher. I really liked him. He just has to roll with the punches when she changes up the set list. When Judy first gets to London, she shows up to rehearsal and Burt is just so happy — he's going to get to play piano for Judy Garland. And Judy's like, ugh, I want to go rest, I'm tired. And they're like, well, the show is tomorrow. And she's like, okay, bye, I'm going to go lay down.
As we explore the current-day storyline, we see some fans of hers. She's wondering, are there people waiting at the stage door for me after my shows? Rosalyn's kind of like, I mean, not really, but do you want to go get a drink? And Judy says no. She goes to the stage door and there's this couple — these two gay guys that adore her. They've bought tickets to see her every night. They get her autograph. And then she goes, hey, do you guys want to get some dinner? Everywhere is closed, so they go back to these guys' house and they make really bad eggs.
By the way, that's my dream. Imagine running into your favorite celebrity and they're like, can I come over?
This scene of her cooking eggs is the most human you see her in the movie. Even though she is still putting on a show for these guys, it was the most connected to her, because you see her seeing someone else. She's talking to one of the men and he's kind of crying because it's been hard for them, and she looks around and notices the pictures of herself on the wall and she sees what her music has meant to these men. She gets a different perspective than the one of the jaded performer. It's in those moments that I really do appreciate what Renée Zellweger can do.
But I have a hard time with the more fantastical elements because it felt like two separate movies. When we go into the childhood, everybody is so mean to her all the time. Everything is the worst. The movie opens with this really great recreation of The Wizard of Oz set. Some bigwig — I think it's Louis B. Mayer — is basically saying, look Judy, other girls are pretty, but you've got a voice. But we will replace you if we have to.
I had never thought about what Judy went through. How many pills she was given to keep her — basically they said, take these diet pills instead of eating, take these pills to stay awake so we can shoot longer hours, take these pills to do this. She didn't have a childhood. That's what went into making The Wizard of Oz — a miserable, unhappy, abused, stunted girl. Her life was ruined. Not just by this movie, but by the same machine that made this movie, that made all of her movies.
So to rewatch The Wizard of Oz feels strange. As we assess what went into creating the art that we watch — this movie that means so much to so many, that's a part of people's childhood, was this girl's waking nightmare. I would have loved to explore that more. I felt like this movie chose very weird elements to focus on and had these little hints, glimpses, almost connections to things I'm really intrigued by and then would move away and go back to one of Judy's husbands.
Finn Wittrock plays Mickey Deans, her last husband. Finn Wittrock is gorgeous, but he does do a click-your-heels joke to Judy very quickly after meeting her and it's like — get out of here. How dare you say that to her. Leave her alone.
And we haven't even gotten into her children — Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft, Joey Luft. Why does someone like this have children? She wants to do right by them, but she has such a focus on herself as she has been taught to have. She just can't be there for her kids. She has to make money. And then while making money, she does pills and she drinks. When she basically ends her run of shows in London, Rosalyn says to her very seriously, very earnestly, are you going to be all right? She says, yeah, I'll be fine. No, she's not. Why ask her that? You're not going to help her. You're just another person who made money off of her and now she's going to go along her way. It's very much like what's happening with Britney Spears — we're all so worried about Britney. Not enough to do anything, but somebody should go help her. What are you going to do to help her, Rosalyn?
It's on Amazon Prime and Hulu. It's interesting. I'm glad I watched it. It's not my cup of tea in terms of biopics, but to see Renée Zellweger capture that voice is really incredible.
Gia
The story of the life of Gia Carangi, a top fashion model from the late 1970s, from her meteoric rise to the forefront of the modeling industry, to her untimely death.
This came out in 1998. It has a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes — though it's not a totally fair comparison because it only has 13 critical reviews, while Judy has 333. This was an HBO made-for-TV movie. Angelina Jolie won the Golden Globe for portraying Gia and Faye Dunaway won Supporting Actress for her role as Wilhelmina Cooper, the modeling agency woman. She tied with Camryn Manheim for The Practice. I adore Camryn Manheim, by the way — she's in Romy and Michele, has the yearbook, has some great scenes with Janeane Garofalo.
All the awards should have been given to Angelina Jolie and to Elizabeth Mitchell, her co-star in this film. But we've got to start with Angelina.
Angelina Jolie has the it factor in the same way that Gia did, which adds an extra layer of intrigue to this movie. Gia was a real model who in her short life took the modeling industry by storm. Angelina got painted with such harsh brushstrokes, and as the years go on she just continues to use her influence and her access for good to help people. You have to appreciate that she walks the walk. And I think she is very, very talented.
Her portrayal of Gia is particularly interesting because — this isn't an official comparison, just something interesting — Renée, to become Judy, had to study and become her. Angelina Jolie is a good actress, a really good actress. But to find someone who has that same star quality that Gia herself had, something you can't put your finger on but you are just drawn to them — Angelina has had that forever. You watch her in a movie and you are drawn to her. She has this sense of humor that carries through her work. There's a cleverness and awareness in her roles that I enjoy, a quirked eyebrow. She draws you in.
Even when she's more naive, in Maleficent, her sense of humor shines through. She knows what she knows and she's this undeniable force. I watched By the Sea, the film she directed with her and Brad Pitt just sort of hating each other, and she is so watchable. She brings Gia's story into such vivid focus.
Gia, in one of the first scenes we see her in, meets this guy who likes her and she takes him to a tattoo parlor. They don't wind up getting the tattoos, but Gia is the kind of person you get a tattoo for. She's energy and excitement and fun. She envelopes people, brings people into her fold. So when she meets some people outdoors that ask her to come back to their place to take pictures of her, we see how that translates into the camera.
At her first big photo shoot, her makeup artist is Linda, played by Elizabeth Mitchell, who she connects with immediately when she opens Linda's can of Tab for her. Elizabeth Mitchell is perhaps best known for Lost. I know her from this movie and from a great arc on Once Upon a Time where she has an ice cream shop and she's a snow queen. She is another insanely charismatic person. To watch her and Angelina share screen time is a lot to handle because it's so good.
It would have been really easy for the other character playing opposite Angelina's Gia to become overpowered by the chaotic energy of that role. But Elizabeth provides the perfect push and pull. There's a strength to her. And through her, you can see how someone would fall so hard for Gia despite the major lows that come with all the highs.
This movie's handling of Gia's relationship with Linda was impressive. These two women loved each other. And as media in 2021 continues to struggle with portraying romances that aren't heterosexual, I really appreciated that Gia never made a big deal of the love between Gia and Linda. It was inevitable. Of course they're drawn to one another. Gia's mom is kind of like, why are you sending flowers to a girl? But this movie isn't about homophobia. It's not about struggling with a sexual identity. Gia is fully herself and she loves Linda. And the fact that the two are both women is never even an issue raised between the two of them.
Linda has a boyfriend but is enthralled by Gia and can't stay away. She's the most solid person in Gia's life, but she can't give everything in the way Gia wants. Gia is very needy. Despite her deep love for Linda, Gia can never quite commit.
This movie is told through both a narrative arc and various characters speaking to the camera as though they are doing an interview about Gia. The bits of the film that are interviews — which take place after Gia has died from AIDS-related complications from sharing needles — give us the most sympathetic but also real look at who Gia was. Linda knew her better than anyone. Knew her shortcomings and appreciated her for who she was while also acknowledging Gia needed more. Gia always needed more.
The film allows us to really gradually fall in love with Gia despite the more frustrating elements of her — despite her drug addiction, her inability to say no. You feel for her. There's a line delivery where Gia is meeting Wilhelmina Cooper for the first time at the modeling agency. When she gets there, there are just all these blonde, clean-cut women. So she says to her potential employer, if I had known you were looking for Marsha effing Brady, I would have stayed home. Which ties for me all-time Marsha Brady references with Cruel Intentions — I feel like I'm the Marsha effing Brady of the Upper East Side and sometimes I want to kill myself. So Sarah Michelle Gellar and Angelina Jolie — great work.
Faye Dunaway plays Wilhelmina Cooper. She gives Gia her first big break and they become really close, with her serving as a mother figure to Gia, who needs so much support. Her real mother is played by Mercedes Ruehl — a well-intentioned woman who doesn't understand the darkness Gia can go to when she feels untethered, who maybe is aware of it but doesn't want to acknowledge it. So when Wilhelmina dies, Gia is sent into a tailspin.
The movie is definitely a made-for-TV biopic, so it's overdramatic in a lot of ways. But there's still a heart here and a realism. There are some really funny parts. It sounds like an afterschool-special bummer of heroin use, but it isn't — there's humor because there was humor in Gia's life. That's how Gia dealt with things.
And yeah, there's a lot of naked Angelina Jolie. I feel like that's what this movie got known for — it was on the top naked scenes on Mr. Skin. If that's what you're coming to this movie for, you're going to be bummed. I mean, I guess you're going to have a great time. But the story here is really good and there's a lot of heart, and this is somebody I wouldn't have known about otherwise.
I was watching interviews with the real Gia and it's such a bummer. Bummer is not a serious enough word. It's sad to watch someone that clearly had so much passion but clearly was having such a hard time. In the interviews, she's talking a mile a minute. She has so much she wants to say that she can't get out. I think she had a hard time dealing with all the thoughts going around in her head.
I appreciated getting this look at her — who she wanted to be and how she contended with finding out she was one of the first women with AIDS the doctors were dealing with. It was new. She had to come to terms with dying young. It is currently on HBO Max. I really recommend it. It's one of Angelina's best roles.
Shared Themes
Biopics are not usually a genre I seek out because I find it's either someone I already know too much about — so then you know what's gonna happen — or it's somebody you don't know and you're like, okay, this may as well just be a movie. But I've realized over the last year that I've been unfair to them. I do appreciate seeing a more honest look at the lives of women who were always presented to us as either angels or demons. Women who we oohed and aahed over until their humanity became too much for us to bear. Until the sad reality of what led them here, led them to success, made us feel too guilty, too unclean.
In these movies, we explore the life of a woman with substance abuse problems, a woman who was chewed up and spit out by the entertainment industry. If you're going into your office job, no one is going to put up with your pill popping. You're going to lose the job. But for Judy and for Gia, their substances of choice are how they got through the day. And because other people are making so much money off of them, they look the other way instead of trying to help. It's not anyone else's responsibility to help them — they're both very young when they first become embroiled in these worlds — but we see this in the entertainment industry so often because these women become commodities.
The films Judy and Gia do a good job of exploring the women's addiction without sensationalizing it, without trivializing it. We see it as a fact of their lives, as something they both struggle with.
Judy was given all sorts of pills from day one to keep her thin, keep her focused, keep her fitting the mold the studio wanted. So when those pills became an addiction, as she took more and more to balance out her emotions, the studio didn't see it as a problem. It wasn't until it cut into their bottom line that Judy was ousted. And then she's basically given a babysitter for her London shows — a babysitter who knows to have a doctor on hand, who gets Judy dressed even as she's half out of it, whose job is to get Judy on stage no matter the condition she's in.
Judy knows it. She comments on it, jokes in interviews about the pills she was given as a child. She somehow separates herself from the trauma she endured, uses it as a punchline, and doesn't acknowledge how it shaped who she is now. She drinks as well, trying to numb her feelings because she hasn't been allowed to have any since childhood when she was simply a cog in a machine. You can't go from that life to normal life. She isn't equipped for it. So she stays in the cycle — drugs to get on stage, drugs to sleep, drugs for the nerves of performing, so she can make money, so she can be with her children.
Gia's drug use was not necessarily workplace approved in the way Judy's had been, but everyone knew of it and for a long time looked the other way. When it started affecting her performance, people whispered about her, laughed at her, complained about having to work with her. One photographer hires her anyway knowing she's having problems and treats her with kindness. But even that isn't helpful because she continues making horrible choices for her body.
It's devastating when her friend comes to visit and she asks if he has money, clearly wanting to go buy drugs. He says no. She says, well, if you want to have sex with me, give me some money and you can. Later in the film, when we think she's doing a little better, she goes into a creepy alley and is assaulted by men she tries to buy drugs from. She does heroin, something difficult to kick even in the times she goes to rehab. It's too easily accessible to her. She's so young and it makes her life go more smoothly, she thinks. She worries about getting back into modeling after a stint in rehab and does just a little bit of drugs just to take the edge off. And Linda sees and is so disappointed. But it's clear Gia can't help herself.
These women's addictions are fed, ignored, glossed over to keep them making other people money. No one wants to stick their neck out and stop the gravy train.
In Judy and in Gia, our protagonists have someone else they try to be better for, someone they want to devote their life to. But those people are never enough. And that's the heartbreak of these movies — watching these women desperately try to be there for those they love, but getting sucked back under by their addictions again and again. There's a depressing, stark realism here, showing that even love, even the potential for happiness, even knowing there's a better way — it doesn't stop addiction.
Judy was in this business since she was a child. She doesn't have life skills. She can't get a job at Taco Bell. All she can do is sing for her supper. And yet performing is what leads her to having problems, what causes her to use and abuse pills and alcohol. But she wants to be with her children so badly. Her children are who she lives for. But to be with them, she needs money to buy a house. They're sick of being shuttled around from hotel to hotel. To get money, she needs to perform. To perform, she needs drugs. And therefore she is unfit to see her children. It's a vicious cycle. Each time she seems about to escape it, she is dragged down by the inevitability of her addiction.
She's been numbed throughout life, so she can't handle true emotion, leading her from one man with false promises to another. These husbands of hers took from her, destroyed her career, lost her all her money. So she is one of the most famous people, one of the most iconic singers, struggling to get money to have somewhere to live.
With her children in their happiest moments, she is still performing, playing make-believe. Her children know this on some level. Her daughter Lorna, despite being young, seems to almost be humoring her mother when they're on the phone together, when her mother tells them about her plans for the future. You can tell she has such a love for these kids. But she didn't have a childhood, so she doesn't know what to do with them. She doesn't know how to relate to them. This play-acting she does with them is so strange, and it insulates her from any real relationship with these kids.
It makes me wonder about Liza Minnelli — about her relationship with Judy in real life, about how you feel when the rest of the world has a piece of your mother that you don't.
Gia had a reckless nature before she got into modeling, before she got into drugs, but it was clear based on her actions and the testimony of those that knew her that she had a big heart. She was desperate for love and acceptance, but she always gave it back in kind. She opened people up. She was excited to be around everyone, curious about them. She was taken with Linda immediately, intrigued by the woman who didn't judge her the way the other makeup artists and models did.
At the photo shoot where she meets Linda, the photographer is like, who wants to stay and take some naked pictures? The other models are like, ew, bye. And Gia says, I'll stay if Linda stays. And Linda stays and joins in. Gia knows Linda is special. Linda is unafraid and strong in all the ways that Gia pretends to be, in the ways that Gia is vulnerable. They are a natural pair.
Gia tries so desperately to get clean for Linda, but the pull of drugs is too much. At one point when they have reunited and she promises to be clean and they're laughing, they're hugging — Linda's laughter turns to sobs racking her body because Gia has snatched back the little baggie of drugs from Linda that Linda thought they would finally be rid of. Gia can't let it go.
No matter where she is in her life, Linda is not far from Gia's mind. She calls her, she thinks of her, she wants to make it work. Her last visit with Linda made me sob. I mean, the whole movie made me sob, but it's so brutal. I'm tearing up a little bit thinking about the scene where Gia and Linda are hugging and Gia knows that she's dying and Linda doesn't know. Oh my God.
Love, adoration — it isn't enough to overcome addiction. Both women's lives are cut short before they can become clean. Judy died of an accidental overdose and Gia's years of intravenous drug use led to AIDS. Judy was only 47 and Gia was just 26.
We look at women like this from the outside — models, singers — and we think they have it all. We wonder how they could throw it away for drugs. But these stories show us how addiction has no logic. It has no boundaries. It can take hold of anyone.
Judy and Gia are two women that are difficult, that can be unlikable. The worst thing you can be as a woman, right? Unlikable. They're unlikable right up until you adore them. Those who fall for Judy and Gia fall hard. They're polarizing figures.
Judy Garland was not someone I had personally thought much about. I liked The Wizard of Oz. As we see her life unfold, we watch the more current Judy struggle to find work, struggle to get paid, even as she still has those people that adore her. And I didn't get it. Not until we meet the fan couple outside. After Judy tells Rosalyn she doesn't want to get drinks with her, saddened by the thought that no one is waiting for her, no one is interested in her — she meets this couple. To see her through the eyes of these people that adore her showed me another side of her. The way she inspires. What her voice can bring up for people.
We see how nervous the men are to impress this iconic figure in their world and what it means to them to share a quiet night with her. She says to these guys, when one of them is talking about what he and his partner have been through: they hound people in this world, anybody who's different, they can't stand it. Well, to hell with them.
There is a kindness in her, a twinkle in her eye, and in that moment I was like — I get it. I would go to the ends of the earth for Judy Garland. You watch her interviews in real life and you see that laugh, that wry humor, how she contends with how other people see her. I think you could watch that and think, this woman's full of herself, or rude, or disconnected. But I watch it and I just see someone trying to deal with the cards they've been dealt.
Gia was a mostly unknown figure to me before I saw this movie for the first time, and I've thought about it a lot since. Angelina built a legacy for Gia, gave viewers an understanding of someone we didn't know. Someone who on first glance is overbearing, too much. But because I was able to spend two hours with her, I understood where that brashness was coming from. The vulnerability underneath, the fear she masks but doesn't ever truly hide. A fear she's willing to admit while continuing the tough girl act.
The other women at her photo shoots, upon seeing her, dislike her. She's different, she's loud. Near the beginning she has a mullet haircut. It's not great. A makeup artist upon her entrance says, oh my God, she's a beast. She scares me. And yet as he says that, he sees Gia for the first time and loves her.
I was watching interviews — I was trying to make sure I could pronounce Gia Carangi's last name. And on YouTube there's a series of talks between Cindy Lindner, who is the person Linda is based on, and model Carol Alt. They talk about Gia, about seeing her and just being entranced. There was something about this woman. The people who like her love her.
These women evoke strong responses. Men yell at Judy from her audience as women cackle behind Gia's back. And yet both have people who adore them. Nobody feels truly neutral about these women once they meet them. You either marry Judy Garland or you scream at her from her audience. And for Gia, you love her or you're scared of her.
What Gia Does Better
Judy was a big-budget, incredible, prestige-film biopic. But I think there are a few things in the honesty of Gia that are worth a look if you can only watch one of these movies.
I didn't feel a connection to Judy in the same way I did to Gia. Despite not having Gia as part of my personal cultural landscape in the way that Judy is, the way Judy's story is told — the last few months of her life and then her younger days — kept the parts of her too compartmentalized. Whereas Gia's linear story with the use of interspersed interviews provided a fuller picture of who Gia was.
The two halves of Judy felt disconnected. Young Judy and old Judy were completely different people. Yes, some of the young Judy flashbacks were in direct relation to what older Judy had going on, but older Judy acknowledged her past only with laughter. There was no reconciliation of what happened to her with what she's going through. This felt like a movie portrayal of a person rather than a real person. Renée is really fantastic, but it's an impersonation of what we already know. There are no new shades to this woman — simply a regurgitation of what has already been in the ether.
We see when she's talking to a doctor about her voice and the doctor says, do you take anything for depression? And she says, four husbands didn't work. She is never serious. I appreciate her humor being captured, but to see so few real moments from her in this exploration of her life made it hard to get on board.
From the first moment in Gia, we see who Gia is. In one of her first exchanges, she says something so expository it should have been laughable. But it wasn't, because it's just who she is, just that honesty. This guy comes up to her — she's working at a diner — and this guy TJ says he's nervous. She says, am I making you nervous? Yeah. Well good, that's the idea. Scare the shit out of people so they can't see how scared you are.
She says it with no guile. She's truly herself in everything. And we see from those who talk about her what sort of role they played in her life. Everybody wanted to be loved by Gia, and they talk about her with a reverence. She saw people for who they were and she presented herself completely honestly.
Watching these two movies got me thinking — I may prefer a movie about someone I don't know as well, because we all have a picture of who Judy is. The movie either confirms or disabuses us of our preconceived notions. Judy brought up nothing new besides me being like, what? She was only 47? But Gia was not someone I knew much about. I didn't have expectations for her story.
I would have liked if Judy had shown me who Judy was — not just how she was treated. The Judy Garland we saw was constantly behind a mask. She had her vulnerable moments, but I didn't get a feeling of connection, of humanity. The movie feels like a very glossy version of her life. Even her saddest moments felt more for dramatic effect than to show me the reality of someone.
She says in this film, I'm only Judy Garland for an hour a night. Right? Meaning the other 23 hours she's a human being. But we only see the hour where she's Judy Garland. The other 23 hours make up so little of the film.
The ending has Judy saying, I love you all. You won't forget me, will you? Promise you won't. And we haven't. We're never going to forget Judy Garland. But do we know her at all? Are we remembering a real person or an amalgamation of talent and stories? A child chewed up by the Hollywood machine, an aging star with substance problems? We see her in a variety of boxes, as pieces instead of a whole. I never get a full picture to have sympathy for.
In Gia, over the course of the story, the viewer becomes enraptured by Gia — even if you don't know the model before watching the film. It's why those who left reviews were so positive. It's why the movie lives on on Film Twitter. Because if you do see it, you will feel for this woman. Gia opens herself up to love, and so we love her.
Of course she's less jaded than Judy. We see Judy after decades in the business. But I could connect with Gia in a way I would have loved from Judy.
I hope you will give Gia a chance. It's currently on HBO Max. It's one of Angelina's best roles. And Elizabeth Mitchell — two real solid heads of hair on those two, by the way..
