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Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Does nothing to restore Szabo's good name, but it does a good deal to enhance our appreciation of Bening. Read more
Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: This is, of course, the sort of role about which actresses dream, and it is Annette Bening who brings Julia to raging, mischievous, unforgettable life. Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: There's an art to making this kind of movie -- and Szabo has assembled all the right ingredients and combined them with a delicate but masterful touch. Read more
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Bening shines, and the film shines too. Read more
Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle: There are several notable actors in it, most of them quite good, but it's the glorious Annette Bening who hoists this flawed production on her mink-wrapped shoulders and makes it work. Read more
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: A pretty good picture wrapped around a great, Oscar-contender performance. Read more
Richard Nilsen, Arizona Republic: Bening brings such vitality to the role that she sweeps aside all the quibbles, and you have to sit back and enjoy what is a masterly performance by a great actor playing a great actor. Read more
Ty Burr, Boston Globe: This is Bening's field day, and she fends off all comers with a performance that's astonishing for both its happy invention and technical overkill. Read more
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: The filmmakers have brought such breadth and depth to the material. Read more
Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: An intelligently witty comedy that boasts the sort of performance from Annette Bening that had wags predicting an Academy Award nomination months ago. Read more
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Just because it's meringue does not mean that there are not genuine pleasures to be found in this light comedy. Read more
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: It has enough surprises to keep you guessing, and for Annette Bening it's the liveliest of comebacks. Read more
Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: The 1930s touches, including a selection of background music, are beguiling. Read more
Kim Morgan, L.A. Weekly: For all Bening's high emoting and her trademark giggle, here overused to the point of annoyance, for most of its length Being Julia offers little insight into a woman whose life is ruled by theatrics. Read more
John Anderson, Newsday: There isn't much about Istvan Szabo's direction that he can brag about, and Ronald Harwood's script retains too much of Maugham's plot and not enough of his coherence. Read more
Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: Playing a West End stage queen in the otherwise musty Being Julia, Bening has a high time strutting her good/bad stuff. Read more
Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: Everything is in place for a tour de force film. Yet the end result is so lackluster and pedestrian, a more fitting title is Being and Nothingness. Read more
Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: Even with the whimsically understated Irons as the oblivious husband and that lion Michael Gambon as the ghost of Julia's acting teacher, director Istvan Szabo's movie leaves no impression. Read more
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: I enjoyed watching Ms. Bening in close to top form, and I think you will, too. Read more
A.O. Scott, New York Times: Playing a star of the prewar London theater uneasily stepping into middle age, Annette Bening manages a hectic plot with glamour and aplomb. Read more
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: It is Bening that's worth the price of admission. She makes even the corniest line ring true. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Being Julia is one of the most uneven affairs I have watched in a theater this year. It's like two movies that have been inelegantly grafted together. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I liked the movie in its own way, while it was cheerfully chugging along, but the ending let me down. Read more
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: There's no question that the source material and the screenwriter make for a natural fit. Read more
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Movies don't get much more inoffensively middlebrow than Being Julia. Read more
Claudia Puig, USA Today: Annette Bening gets the role of a lifetime in Being Julia, and she runs off with the movie. Read more
Leslie Camhi, Village Voice: Bening's comic gifts make the most of Ronald Harwood's witty screenplay. Read more
Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Bening makes the movie into something finer still. She digs into a pagoda-size heap of roles and roles-within-roles and pulls them all out, one by one, deftly. Read more
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: May lack originality but makes up for it in sheer bravado and really nice clothes. Read more