Nora, Julie, Julia: Legacies of Older Women in Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia (2009)

This chapter considers Nora Ephron’s final film, Julie & Julia (2009). Focusing on famous cook Julia Child (Meryl Streep), the film subverts typical representations of older women on screen: Julia has a joyful sex and romantic life, is child free and spends the film exploring her newfound passion and career as a cook. Moreover, although Julie & Julia has been read as exemplifying a regressive image of postfeminist domesticity, I suggest that the role of the older woman in the film complicates this reading. By depicting the profound influence Julia has over younger, disillusioned Julie (Amy Adams), the film offers a model of feminist mentorship between older and younger women—one which celebrates women’s knowledge of and expertise in home cooking, and which foregrounds women’s pleasure in food. Given that food and femininity is often conceptualised through discourses of mundane carework or denial and restraint, particularly within a postfeminist context, Julie & Julia’s depiction of foodwork offers an example of everyday feminine resistance to these images. Contextualising this within Ephron’s oeuvre, Julie & Julia celebrates the legacy of older women: Julia Child and Ephron herself.