Julia

It’s controversial even talking about author Lillian Hellman, let alone the allegedly biographical drama, Julia, based on a chapter from her 1973 book Pentimento. This chapter deals with the author’s lifelong friendship with Julia, a woman who lived in Vienna during the Nazi occupation and lost her life in the pursuit of saving Jews from the Third Reich. The problem lies in whether any of this story is factual. Lillian insists that it is, but many prominent people who knew her have called that into doubt. It’s a stigma that threatens to alter one’s perspective of the film while watching it. For this review, I have elected to mention it here and not dwell on it, focusing instead on the merits of the film as is. Like Hildalgo, I will endeavor to view the film as if it were a piece of fiction since I have no direct proof either way as to the truth of it all. 

We are introduced to Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda) and her friend Julia (Vanessa Redgrave) living in the United States. Julia is being raised by her wealthy grandparents, and the two women enjoy a close friendship into their late adolescence. Julia eventually leaves for the University of Oxford and the University of Vienna as a medical student. Lillian, a struggling writer, works on revisions of her play alongside her mentor and lover, famed novelist Dashiell Hammett, at his beach house. 

The University in Vienna is targeted by Nazi thugs who attack and kill several people. Julia, herself, is severely injured while trying to protect those around her. Lillian, upon hearing of the injuries, rushes to Vienna to be with her, finding the woman heavily bandaged and bedridden. But shortly afterwards, Julia is taken away, and the hospital denies any knowledge of her even being there. Lillian remains in Europe in the hopes of finding her again. 

Years later, during the Nazi era, Lillian has become a celebrated playwright and is invited to a writers’ conference in the USSR. Julia contacts her and arranges for Lillian to transport money across the border en route via train to Berlin for use in assisting the anti-Nazi cause. It’s a dangerous mission, and Julia arranges for several other women to assist her along the way. The mission is successful, but soon afterwards, word gets back to her that Julia is dead, killed by Nazi agents. When Lillian tries to visit Julia’s grandparents, she is shocked to find that they deny ever knowing her and are clearly trying to ignore that they ever had a granddaughter who refused to conform at a time when such conformity caused the murder of so many innocent people.  

A big problem this film has is that it focuses on a character who is mostly removed from the story we are really interested in. Julia’s story is almost entirely off-camera, and the film is unable to make what is happening on screen interesting to watch. The best part of the entire film is when Lillian is on the train en route to Moscow via Berlin because there is some real tension involved during these scenes, even though it is shot and staged in such a way as to be a bit confusing. But most of the time, we are distanced from the meat of the story and therefore kept at arm’s length from the danger. There is some baked-in drama just from the aggressors being the Nazis, but aside from a few quick moments, we don’t really see them in action, nor does the film do a good job at building up their threat. It’s shorthand, and it only works as much as it does because of the real-world aspect of it; not because the film has done a good job at developing them. 

The film also fails to establish the relationship between these two women. We get that Lillian idolizes Julia primarily because Lillian tells us so in the numerous voice-overs. She talks about Julia like she is some brave, doomed warrior, and perhaps she is that. But we never get a sense of what Julia thinks about Lillian. Instead, Lillian is treated like a servant, a courier of sorts, there to risk her life to further Julia’s cause. Their relationship is ill-defined. When the two finally meet up in a Vienna café, nothing is done with this scene to better define their relationship, only a request for Lillian to find Julia’s heretofore unmentioned infant daughter and raise her as her own. This plot point leads nowhere as Lillian is never able to find the child and fulfill this promise. 

This film is fractured by the very nature of its premise. Lillian Hellman is a fascinating figure in her own right, and we see a lot of that on screen despite the film supposedly being about Julia. Had this film focused entirely on Lillian, we could have had an interesting story about a frustrated writer living with her addictions while also living with a world-renowned author who also had his demons. There’s enough material there for an amazing story. But this film forces in a secondary narrative that is at odds with the other picture. It takes away from the main story and forces in a narrative that it doesn’t commit to. Both stories would make for great pictures but not sandwiched together into a single narrative where not enough time and focus can be utilized to best tell either of them. 

This is a film struggling to find its identity. It wants to be a story about feminine ideals and intellectual friendships but can’t quite nail it because the two leads spend so little time together on screen. It also wants to make commentary on the atrocities of the Nazis, but aside from a brief and chaotic scene where some men are throwing others over a railing to their deaths, we don’t get enough there, either. Lastly, we don’t get a true sense of why Lillian would risk her life to bring money into Nazi-controlled Berlin. Too much shorthand was used to develop the relationship here for us to understand this. 

This could have been a powerful film about empowered women during the war. Instead, it lacks any real depth and an identity. Jane Fonda is good in this but cannot overcome the weaknesses in this script. It’s got some powerful ideas and is based on a story, real or invented, that could have made a compelling feature, but the execution just isn’t there. What we end up with is a film that doesn’t live up to its potential and has nothing in it demanding we see it, aside from catching a glimpse of Meryl Streep in her screen debut in a throwaway role that she later admitted hating being in. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Richard Roth

Best Director: Fred Zinnemann

Best Actress: Jane Fonda

Best Supporting Actor: Jason Robards (won)

Best Supporting Actor: Maximilian Schell 

Best Supporting Actress: Vanessa Redgrave (won)

Best Screenplay - Based on Material from Another Medium: Alvin Sargent (won)

Best Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe

Best Costume Design: Anthea Sylbert

Best Film Editing: Walter Murch

Best Original Score: Georges Delerue

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Release Date: October 2, 1977

Running Time: 118 minutes

Rated PG

Starring: Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards, Hal Holbrook, Rosemary Murphy, and Maximilian Schell

Directed by: Fred Zinnemann