Thoughts on Renee Zellweger singing as Judy

Not too bad.

Needs more pills, though.

She's not awful and she'd be fine for most musicals, but she's just not Judy.

I'm still surprised people critique her vocals from Chicago so much. Have they heard Gwen Verdon and Ann Reinking? Those two aren't exactly pleasant either.

I'm actually sort of impressed. No one would ever mistake her for Judy, but she holds her own and sounds like she has a lot more heft behind her voice than I'd have initially thought. I guess we can start dream casting her in the upcoming Follies movie. She's totally a Sally, isn't she? I doubt she has the top notes, but neither did Imelda Staunton.

She sounds nothing like Judy, is not nearly as good, and this was the fatal flaw of the film and an otherwise great performance in which she even had her stage movements down pat.

They needed to either find someone else who could match or come close to Judy (very difficult if not impossible to do) or just have Renee lipsync like Judy Davis did.

She sounds really flat and emotionless here and her voice is over-processed.

[quote] Needs more pills, though.

Ha! Ha! Ha!

I'll say!

r1 they're called dolls!

Judy sounded like hell at this point in her career. Zellwegger sounds nothing like her, but if she accurately recreated Judy's late-60s out of control vibrato she would have been criticised even more

The singing was terrible. When you're doing a biopic of a famous singing star---one of the best in the world---USE THEIR GODDAM VOICE. It's absurd to use someone who can't really sing. In the rare case when the actress playing the role is actually a better singer than the original--as was the case with Streisand playing Fanny Brice--then fine, have the actor sing instead. But otherwise, NO.

BTW, Judy did not "sound like hell" during this point in her career. I have a recording of one of those Talk of the Town performances and she still sounds just fine. Not Carnegie Hall level, but a hell of a lot better than Renee Zellweger.

Not terrible but why Even bother attempting to reproduce Judy’s voice, which was one of a kind? Agree that they should’ve used Judy’s voice. We have a to of recordings of Judy from her live performances.

She sounded OK to me. Fair impersonation for an actress. But Trolley song in OP was better than Rainbow song in R5.

Lipsyncing to Judy's voice wouldn't have been right, but I found myself longing for the real thing.

The vocals sounded okay but over-produced. If she had done a couple live segments where she is singing full-throttle like Judy, it would have been a great performance (in a mediocre movie) instead of a good performance.

They should have got someone to imitate Judy's voice and dub Renee, like they did with the Freddie Mercury movie.

I got about half an hour into the film last night- awful. Complete whitewash- like watching a made for TV “drama” in 1985. The scene in the hotel when the family is toluene away? Then meeting Micky Deans? Awful.

“Turned” away

Loved it

Renee's voice is too thin to sound anything like Judy's.