British film makers have lately begun developing a new formula in the shape of stories about Hollywood stars on the skids trying to revive their career via a working trip to the UK. By eschewing the old “rise and fall” narrative and concentrating on the “fall and attempted rebirth”, these films are able to tap into an in-built supply of poignancy which can be either handled gently or inflated to operatic effect.

Renée Zellweger in Judy

First came Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, about the twilight of Gloria Grahame’s career, followed by Stan & Ollie, in which the aging comedy legends Laurel and Hardy turned to the British stage. Now it’s the turn of Judy Garland, with an outstanding Renée Zellweger incarnating the troubled star’s final months in the UK in 1969, when she performed a song and dance season at a London theatre before dying aged 47.

It’s hardly a secret that a sense of melodramatic tragedy inescapably attached itself to the legendary actor-singer. The addiction to pills and emotional fragility that made so much of her adult life a living hell – and eventually killed her – began when she was a...