But perhaps Julie’s situation is so extreme that a considerable talent could be hidden beneath her downtrodden exterior. Perhaps her world is so confining that it would realistically take something as dramatic as the catatonic episode she pulls one day as the kids get home from school for her to move towards realizing her potential. Maybe that’s the kind of thing someone in her situation would need in order to snap her into making a change.

Despite the storylines weaknesses, Taylor practically carries the film with her characteristic flair. Her performances are typically so nuanced, she could make nearly any character believable. The biggest tip-off that she’s just an actor playing a role is that all of the characters share the same whispery voice and rarely blinking eyes. Here she makes an unlikely story seem plausible, largely because she conveys Julie’s groundedness so well.

Courtney Love is surprisingly subtle and not annoying in her role as Claire, and she turns in an equally impressive performance. She’s believable and even likable as a bleach-blonde feathered hair, gum-cracking, tightly clothed Jersey girl. She manages to pull off the performance without going overboard, even as a character who is somewhat over-the-top. She conveys genuine concern for her best friend and her ambivalence about whether to get involved with Julie romantically seems realistic.

Their affair is at once furtive and tentative, as might be expected of two women who haven’t considered that they might be in love with each other until a good 15 years into their friendship. Each of them grapples with what a lesbian affair means about their identity in their own separate ways.

Julie has the parallel endeavor of finding the strength to flout conventional wisdom and realize her intellectual potential relatively late in the game. When an Ivy League admissions professor tells her that most geniuses are young and she’s “over the hill,” the formerly timid 30-something tells him “I don’t think we know what I’m capable of yet.” Julie gains confidence as she sees she can take care of herself and her kids and realizes the hidden promise she has long held.

The dialogue may be less than inspired but there’s a symmetry to the movie’s script, with certain phrases echoed and positions mirrored. When Julie first realizes her life isn’t what she knows it could be Claire tried to get through to her. When she can’t get anything out of her she tells Julie to give her some sort of sign that she can hear her. Later, after Claire locks herself in the bathroom once Juile has confessed her love, it is Julie who has to ask for a sign (the flush of a toilet in this case) that she’s being heard.

Likewise, Julie plops down on the sofa next to Claire, changing the channel without asking—just as Julie’s husband had done to Julie in an earlier scene. He tunes into a game and tunes out her science/nature program. Julie switches to that same channel after plunking herself down and interrupting the game show Claire had been trying to watch.

After what can only have been years of submission Julie is finally in charge. And taking charge of your own destiny is what Julie Johnson is all about.

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