Eric Zonca directed the sublime 'The Dream Life of Angels', a beautiful story of female friendship and existential despair. 'Julia', his first film for 9 years, is equally powerful, but much less charming. Tilda Swinton is great as Julia, but her character is absolutely unlikeable; the plot, meanwhile, though harrowing, in places strains credibility, especially in its portrait of Mexico as a literal hell on earth. Yet Zonca's talent is also on display, and the story commands your attention in spite of its unpleasantness. The ending is ambiguous, potentially interpretable as redemptive, but not clearly so. I'm not sure this is a great film; I am sure I want to see more from this director.