Abstract
Films featuring older single women in leading roles are few and far between in British cinema. This article examines the ways in which older female desire is constructed in three films since 2000: Ladies in Lavender (2004), Notes on a Scandal (2006) and Another Year (2010). In all three films, sexual desire is deemed inappropriate and the characters are narratively disempowered, echoing earlier, pre-feminist representations in British cinema in which ageing single women were often regarded as a threat or used as a warning to younger women. I will thus argue that, despite apparent social changes in status and representation, these films foreground the culturally entrenched notions of ageing femininity that continue to shape the identities of single women in British cinema today.
Published Version
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