FAQ

While preparing for a trip to attend a writers' conference in Moscow in the pre-WWII era (1930s), celebrated American playwright Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda) is asked by her childhood friend Julia (Vanessa Redgrave), now a physician, to travel by way of Berlin and to smuggle $50,000 into Germany to aid the anti-Nazi movement, a dangerous mission for a Jewish writer. Lillian agrees but, even with several of Julia's compatriots helping her through border crossings and inspections, she is shocked by the results.

The movie 'Julia is based on a chapter in the book Pentimento: A Book of Portraits (1973) by American author Lillian Hellman. The story was adapted for the film by American screenwriter Alvin Sargent.

Lillian explains in the opening scenes that 'pentimento' means that the painter repented and changed the scene.

Some of it was sewn into the hat that Julia was asked to wear. She discovers this when she is in the lavatory on the train and feels the paper inside her hat. Although it wasn't seen, it's assumed that money was also hidden in the box of candy that Julia was asked to carry.

Lillian returns to London and, after being informed that Julia has been murdered, Lillian she is asked to deal with the disposition of Julia's body. She travels to Alsace in hopes of finding Julia's daughter but to no avail, so she returns to the U.S. She continues to have nightmares about Julia. She visits Julia's family estate and is shocked to find that they feign no memory of her. Dashiell (Jason Robards) tries to convince her that she has done her best fo find Julia's baby and that the baby is most likely dead. In the final scene, Lillian explains that she ended up outliving Dashiell.

Lillian Hellman is, indeed, an American author. This part is true. Following the release of the film Julia, however, New York psychiatrist Muriel Gardiner, who attended medical school in Vienna before WWII and became involved in the anti-Nazi resistance, claimed that she was the fictionalized Julia and that Hellman based her story on Gardiner's life, garnering details from their shared attorney Wolf Schwabacher. Hellman denied the allegations. The controversy has not yet been resolved and may never be resolved, since Hellman died in 1984 and Gardiner died in 1985.