Changing Narratives of Ageing: Emma Thompson’s Performances of Female Old Age in Late Night and Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

Abstract

At the onset of her sixtieth decade, Emma Thompson remains an active and prolific actress, whilst 'age' has become a more salient trait in her cinematic roles. In the recent Berlinale presentation of her latest film, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022), Thompson’s declarations on her character (a recently widowed woman called Nancy Stokes) received considerable media attention. Referring to her character’s story, Thompson declared that not only is women’s pleasure silenced and made invisible still in the twenty-first century, but the female ageing body is also hidden and considered a hateful view to look at. Thompson’s previous film in a leading role, Late Night (2019), depicts a similarly critical moment in the life of a successful late-night talk show host called Katherine Newbury, whose career seems to reach a dead end when she turns sixty and the channel she works for decides that her show is not profitable anymore. While Nancy Stokes starts a quest to have an orgasm past her sixtieth birthday, Katherine Newbury’s quest focuses on proving that a woman’s creativity and popularity do not have to diminish with age. In this article, we present a textual analysis of the counter-narratives of female aging developed through two of Emma Thompson’s latest lead roles. Within the genre of dramatic comedy, these cinematic narratives of female old age address and subvert topics that are still considered taboo from either ageist or sexist perspectives, or both, and which are closely related to (female) sexuality, creativity and body image in later life.