There are a lot of negative things you can say about this movie: it's a soap opera; you know where it's going ten minutes in; with one exception, the songs are all original, and all lame, especially when compared to Judy's concert songs they're supposed to sound like. BUT none of that matters.I was lucky enough to see Judy in concert a year before she died, and this movie gets it right--the interplay with the audience, the moves, the power of Judy at her height (as opposed to her tv shows where she looked awful and often seemed terrified)--and is as close as we will ever come to having Judy in concert at her greatest on film--and in color! Technically, Ronald Neame also gets it right--his camera is fairly passive, allowing Judy to do the work in long takes that respect both Judy and her audience.Two other things need to be said: 1) Before Cabaret, this picture spliced together a plot with concert numbers that commented on or reflected that plot. Example: When things fall apart, and she'll never get to see her son again (not exactly a spoiler--it's a '60s soap opera!), she sings the one non-original song, I'll Go My Way By Myself, and it's absolutely stunning. And 2) Judy was a brilliant actress, and her dramatic performance is transcendent. In casual scenes she is so natural you'd swear she's making the dialogue up as she goes along (and she might well have been, but the other actors in the scene work well with her) in a way that can be put down as "not acting," but there was a real art to this artlessness. And in her dramatic scenes (at least one of which she wrote for and about herself--you'll know it when you see it) she is fearless, going emotional places that no "trained" actress would ever dare. Only when you see the out-takes (as in the dressing room scene with Charles Bickford in A Star is Born)can you believe that it's really "just" acting.