No need to know the rest of it. One name says it all. There were other stars named Judy, but only one named Garland. With Liza, that’s all there is. This colorful, star-spangled documentary, assembled by director Bruce David Klein, begins with a quote: “Be yourself; everyone else is taken.” Who said it? Oscar Wilde? Truman Capote? If it wasn’t the one and only Liza Minnelli, it should have been, because it fits her perfectly. This long-anticipated, patiently awaited film revelation doesn’t tell it all, but almost. What there is tells and shows more than anything you’ll ever see anywhere else.
LIZA: A TRULY TERRIFIC ABSOLUTELY TRUE STORY ★★★★ (4/4 stars)
Directed by: Bruce David Klein
Written by: Bruce David Klein
Running time: 103 mins.
One year short of her 80th birthday, one of the most cherished icons in the history of show business lets it all hang out, and I’m willing to bet you’ll love her for the way she does it. As the child of Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli, how could it happen any other way? Born into indisputable royalty, there were expectations. There were tragedies. There was the kind of fame that comes once in a lifetime. She was born with talent in her DNA but I think she also learned from watching the geniuses of the movie industry do their work from a high chair on the MGM lot, not ten feet away from the action. If she didn’t learn from the day she could talk, she would have been disabled.
During the course of this candid, touching, thrilling and iconic invasion of her privacy, you get the story of how she invented herself, and first-hand testimonies from the people who helped her do it. From those of us lucky enough to call her a personal friend, I can validate why she rarely talks about her mother, why her sister Lorna is seen only a few times, and her brother Joey is never seen at all. But moments of candor break through moments of darkness like shadows illuminated by a flashlight.
Mercifully, this is not a film smothered by film clips that take up valuable space that should be devoted to journalism and character development. But you get a lot of the great Kay Thompson, her godmother and mentor, who taught and coached so many stars in those legendary MGM musicals that made movie history. You get her intimate remarks about how Kay became a major influence on her life and career after Garland died in 1969, and how Liza took care of her at enormous personal expense until the day she died. From Charles Aznavour, Liza learned how to marry her personal struggles with the ability to act song lyrics onstage with special meaning. You get contributions from friends, confidantes and co-stars such as Michael Feinstein, Mia Farrow, Joel Grey and Chita Rivera. And you get rare footage of her marriages and love affairs with Peter Allen, Charles Aznavour, Ben Vereen, Jack Haley, Jr., sculptor Mark Gero, and her last wedding to David Gest, about whom nobody has anything good to say or remember. Remarks Michael Feinstein: “Always say something good about the dead. David Gest is dead. Good.”
Director Klein is smart enough to avoid making this a candy-coated Valentine to a perfect life that nobody will believe. You get examples of the exemplary decisions Liza made that catapulted her to stardom, but you also get some insight into the disastrous choices she made in matters of the heart. Her greatest sadness is the number of miscarriages that prevented her from having a family of her own. The best scenes in the film are the intimate moments when she surprisingly lets her hair down between tears, confronts her demons, admits the mistakes she made in her mother’s footsteps, and tells the truth about the wasted years of excess, decadence, drugs and alcohol addiction at Studio 54 that shattered her health and took a devastating toll on her voice. There is both sadness and joy in her story, but the thing that makes you want to cheer is the heart-rending revelation that the glitter and the glamour we always expect from Liza Minnelli has always been a manifestation of a desperate need for love unfulfilled. This film lights a candle to illuminate the dark corners in a portrait of courage, strength, self-value and survival.
