Who Is Julia? (TV Movie 1986) Poster

(1986 TV Movie)

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8/10
Implausible movie of brain transference but Winningham saves the day
garrard19 January 2006
Warning: Spoilers
The "Julia" in the title is not played by Winningham. She is played by Julia North, a ravishing beauty that meets her end in the opening minutes of the film. Winningham portrays Mary Frances Bodine, a plain Jane that, due to unfortunate circumstances dies, but is "resurrected" with the brain of North, who can only survive by having her brain transplanted into Winningham's body. The movie deals with the dilemma that both husbands ("Simon and Simon's" Jameson Parker as Julia's and Jonathan Banks as Mary Frances's) must face as they adjust to the "new" woman in one's life and the "departure" of the wife in the others.

Of course the events of this film are highly impossible but it is saved by the always dependable Winningham.
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7/10
interesting
ThunderKing611 October 2018
A very well-made movie.

Throughout the movie you feel creeped out knowing of what they did to the ladies.

This movie is a very to the point movie of a lady having another ladies body and her struggle in the world. Both husbands struggle with it like they should.

The acting is fine the pacing is very slow which isn't a bad thing for this type of movie.

i recommend this movie to people that enjoy discussing social, politic and health topics.
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7/10
Body transplant, not brain transplant
pmitsi-111 March 2010
A very good TV movie. I watched it as a kit and I didn't even remember that Mare Winninhgam was the protagonist.

I was really touched by the notion that what we are is not our appearance, but our character, memories and thoughts (our brain). People often refer to the operation that took place in this film as a "brain transplant". That is not correct. The doctors did a BODY transplant to Julia! Since the "plain Jane" character dies in the first minutes of the film and Julia's body is nearly destroyed, the doctors transfered the brain (i.e. Julia) to the healthy body of plain Jane. That is, they gave a new body to Julia, not a new brain to plain Jane.

The second meaning of the film is that appearance CAN affect character, and thus the person. After Julia wakes up in a new body, she sees people reacting differently to her and thus starts to change herself also.

So, the title "Who is Julia", emphasizes both the fact that Julia is "now" the plain looking woman instead of the attractive one, AND the fact that she is not actually the same character after the body transplant.

So, who is Julia? None actually.
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I am shocked
Authoress00110 June 2003
Usually, I hate the movies that Lifetime airs. My parents watch them constantly, and they seem to all be the same. But this one struck me. I really enjoyed it. It was dramatic without being overly-dramatic. I think the characters were well-developed, and the actors did a stunning job, even if the dialogue was a little choppy here and there.

All in all, "Who is Julia?" was a really good movie, and I would recommend it to anyone.
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9/10
I really liked it.
birthmom10 January 1999
I thought "Who is Julia?" was a very powerful movie with excellent acting by Mare Winningham. She gave a wonderful performance. The rest of the cast was great too. It has aired most often on Lifetime Television.
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9/10
Great movie, even better book
brueggemanntami29 October 2017
I loved this book. It's one of my favorites. I am normally disappointed with movie versions, but this one was done quite well. The actors that they chose did a very good job of bringing this story to the screen. Mare Winningham is an outstanding actress in every role that I have seen her in. She made her character's pain obvious without being overdone. I highly recommend this movie.
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One of my favorite movies.
mmichaels110 January 2000
The first time I saw this movie on TV I loved it. I love Mare Winningham and think she was perfect for this part. I tried to tape it for future viewing when it ran again but I missed the first crucial 10 minutes. I would love to see it again. I love modern sci-fi type movies. Or was it really sci-fi?
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9/10
Lovely even after all these years
cersia222 March 2014
Warning: Spoilers
This is a story of identity. Who we were and who we become after a life changing event. This story touched me on so many levels as a teen in the 80s and still presents itself as a good story.

However, as good as this Sci-Fi flick is, there is some twists in the story I didn't particularly enjoy. While the ending has a happily ever after feel to the story, but the ending felt forced and artificial.

I felt at odds with the whole independent Julia story-arc. It was never resolved. Julia is still dependent on Don loving her to feel 'normal' again. So much for the Doc's independence theory.

The romance between the Doctor and Julia is downplayed to nothing more than infatuation that sometimes occurs between Doctor and patient though this is the most interesting relationship of the entire plot. His reason for loving her is not included in the show which enhances the plot.

So if you like twisted sci-fi romances then yes, this one is for you.
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A brain transplant?
FeverDog8 November 2003
Warning: Spoilers
*SPOILERS*

After reading the plot summary provided by my digital cable, I was laughing with incredulity: So, *this* was the inspiration for the ridiculously funny plot twist in SOAPDISH!

But the cable guide did give it three stars, and since I've always liked Mare Winningham (so much that I even bought her CD) I gave the movie a shot even though it was on the Lifetime Movie Network, home of hundreds of insufferably cheesy weepers. How surprised I was when WHO IS JULIA treated its fantastical premise with intelligence and the seriousness it required to be plausible.

At first I felt the movie should have been set in the future to make it more believable, but doing that would take a higher budget than a TV movie would allow, and after a while it didn't matter.

------

It's now been a few weeks since I wrote the above paragraphs. It was very late when I started, so I decided to sleep on the rest of my thoughts. But now it's almost a month later and I'm having trouble remembering where I was going with this review. Let's see what I can pull out of my (own) brain.

Hmm. The only thing that's coming to me is the end, when the husband of the donor pleads with Mare to...wait a minute, I'm confused. It was the husband of the body of Mare with the brain of someone else because their son recognized her but she didn't know him. Yes, that sounds right. Anyway, the husband was understandably distraught and was begging Mare to stay with them. I don't remember the specifics, but he got a little rough with Mare but quickly calmed himself down and accepted that his wife was gone, despite her body standing right in front of him.

I think that was the end. Sorry this review couldn't be more helpful. I still recommend the movie, even though I don't recall why.
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The Definition of Love
Minerva_Meybridge4 September 2011
When a beautiful fashion model's body is crushed in a traffic accident, and a rather homely woman suffers a brain hemorrhage, doctors decide to transplant the brain of the model into the brain dead woman. Therein comes the dilemma of the former model, Julia, to discover whether it's the body or the mind that make a person who he or she is.

Rejected by her husband, Julia must thwart off the affections of the man once married to the woman, whose body she now inhabits, and convince his children that she is not their mother. Throughout her life, Julie held everyone's attention. Now, she must struggle for it. No longer beautiful, she must come to grips with whom she really is.

The plot foreshadows John Woo's Face Off with Nicholas Cage and John Travolta (though there is no telling if that is where he got the idea), where the faces and identities of two men, one good, one bad, are exchanged.

Ultimately, Julia learns that much of what she believed to be love was based upon how she looked, and not upon who she was inside. The viewer must, of course, give license to the fact that no one has ever successfully transplanted a brain (George Bush grants proof to that) and Julia might have experienced the same dilemma had she been scarred by fire or lost all of her limbs. This was just a less lurid way of putting forth the idea that sometimes love is an illusion; that marriages often fail, not because they grow cold, but because people grow old and the sexual attraction that was the basis of it is now gone.

This is not a great movie, in that it was made for television on a modest budget, but it gives one pause to consider how others might treat us if suddenly we became outwardly different in a not so pleasant way.
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