Annette Bening's energy for this role is just incredible. It's like the Camera literally stays on her even when she is not in the scene. This is at the very least (IMO) an Oscar Nomination. I really enjoyed this film, and the ending was fantastic. Two days later, and Being Julia is really growing on me.
Marlon
I dunno if Maugham handled it better, but I think the ending, or the lack of setup for the ending, is the problem with the film. If the script had been clever enough to show that the scene Julia "rewrites" is a superior alternate ending to the play-within-a-play this would have been a much more satisfying movie. Since I couldn't tell where in the play the "swing" scene took place (except that it is preceeded by a costume change it could just as well be the first act, for all we know) I didn't know, as I was watching, whether to be puzzled by the audience's lack of confusion at the turn of events or bemused about how the actors would handle the rest of the evening once the underpinning act had been kicked away. Actually, I felt both until the curtain and applause revealed that it was actually the last act, I don't think there's much excuse for the scenarist leaving us (or was it just me -- did I miss something?) that unmoored.
By the way, are we or are we not supposed to notice that Julia's last delivery of the last scene of her previous play, the performance so awful she is packed off to the Isle of Jersey, is actually her best attempt at that execrable text? Until that point her declamations aren't much more convincing than the later ones of her young rival, and her applause is correspondingly unearned. Without more confidence in the plot and direction I can't tell whether this is a sublety to be appreciated or an inadvertence.