Being Julia

Being Julia centres on Julia Lambert, a celebrated London stage actress in the late 1930s who has grown tired of both her career and her marriage to Michael Gosselyn, the impresario who manages her. Seeking distraction, she becomes involved with Tom Fennell, a young American admirer, but the affair turns out to be more complicated and more useful to him than she expected, and she eventually turns the situation to her own advantage in a way that plays out on stage as much as off it. The story is set in the theatre world of the period and draws on W. Somerset Maugham's novel Theatre, adapted for the screen by Ronald Harwood.

István Szabó directed the film, which was released in 2004 and followed Taking Sides (2002) in his filmography. Annette Bening plays Julia, with Jeremy Irons as Michael, Miriam Margolyes as Dolly de Vries, Bruce Greenwood as Lord Charles, Michael Gambon as Jimmie Langton and Leigh Lawson as Archie Dexter. Robert Lantos produced the British-Canadian production, made for about 18 million USD and taking roughly 14 million USD worldwide.

The film holds a 7/10 rating on IMDb from around 13,000 votes and a 6.4/10 on TMDB from 125 votes, while critics gave it 6.9/10 across 120 reviews.