Erica Zonca made an indelible impression with his “Dreamlife of Angels” (1998) but managed only to produce one other feature since. In his erratic but fascinating “Julia,” Tilda Swinton is center screen as a 40-year-old alcoholic and liar who’s lousy at con jobs and lousier at life. Coming from an actress who’s avowedly teetotal, the sense, and almost the scent, of dissolution and despair is ever-present. (A child-kidnapping plot that goes multiply awry adds to the dread.) While the narrative lurches, Swinton ably captures states of drunkenness and disregard, disorientation and self-degradation. It takes the film’s exhausting but often-exhilarating duration to cycle through self-abasement to self-awareness and perhaps even hope. With Saul Rubinek, Kate del Castillo, Adam Gould. 144m. 35mm. (Ray Pride)
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