Screenshot - The Older Woman
From Norma Desmond to Mrs Robinson, the older woman has long been a provocative icon of cinema. And older woman-younger man relationships are still raising eyebrows and garnering headlines, thanks to recent films like Babygirl, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy and Marty Supreme.
Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode look at what happens when the woman is older in an age gap relationship, and ask - why is the older woman still such a provocative proposition?
Ellen speaks to critic and cosmopolitan older woman Anne Billson about the evolution of the older woman through film history, from Sunset Boulevard to Something's Gotta Give.
Mark talks to actor Anne Reid about her controversial first lead film role, in 2003's The Mother - about a sexagenarian grandmother who starts a relationship with her daughter's boyfriend, played by Daniel Craig.
And Mark also talks to Matt Greenhalgh, the screenwriter behind Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool, which told the story of Hollywood star Gloria Grahame's real late-in-life romance with the 28-year-old Liverpudlian actor Peter Turner.
Producer: Jane Long
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4
Published on Friday, 23rd January 2026.
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