Skip to main content

Review - Twentieth Century Women

Mike Mills wrote and directed this wonderful film about a teenage boy’s tutelage in life by the women around him. I found it to be very low-key but powerfully moving, about human connection and communication of values in a changing world that sometimes seems alien and hostile in its modernity. It made me laugh out loud several times as well as shed a tear or two.

California, 1979, is the setting for a rooming house run by Dorothea Fields (Annette Benning) who, as a single mother, is concerned about her son Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) being a well-rounded person. She enlists the help of two other, younger women, punky lodger Abby (Greta Gerwig) and neighborhood girl Julie (Elle Fanning), to help teach him good values and how to be a man, from a woman’s perspective. There is a lot of discussion about feelings and trying to comprehend a social landscape that is fraught with miscommunication, and every character is multidimensional and complex.

The tone of the film is very quiet and contemplative with a score that is melancholic as well as bright and sunny, creating an almost ephemeral atmosphere that carries a strong nostalgic charge. Throughout the film I was haunted by the feeling of the present always precariously balanced between a past that is often misremembered and a future that seems frightening and chaotic. It’s a feeling I got from Hell or High Water as well, that sense of the world maybe having moved on from the principles you’ve founded your life upon and what that may mean for the future. It feels very much like a love-letter to the 20th century and something to mark a time and way of thinking that seems endangered by the reactionary culture of today, but I imagine that sentiment could be applied to any period, really, and that might just be the point of the movie.  

I thought the performances all around were perfect. In addition to Benning’s authentic portrayal, Greta Gerwig turns in a quietly accomplished performance as the tough but fair late 20th century punk rock feminist, Elle Fanning is intriguing as the complicated Julie who Benning’s teenage son is infatuated with, and Billy Crudup as handyman William brings a relaxed charm. A great cast of actors who work really well together, I felt.


I found the film cast a spell on me from the start that kept me fully invested in all the emotions and intelligence at play. There are some very astute observations made throughout the film, but it also manages to be very funny with more than a couple of scenes where I found myself laughing out loud. It’s a really beautifully balanced portrait of a time and a place and a philosophy whose spirit one hopes is still with us. I’m very glad I saw it and recommend it for anyone who wants to better comprehend the multitude of perspectives that make up the world.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Film Review: Blade Runner 2049

Denis Villeneuve has succeeded in creating that rarest of films: a very late sequel that respects and improves upon the original. Blade Runner 2049 expands the canvas of the first film with new locations and characters, all of whom feel authentic and true to the tone and themes of 1982’s Blade Runner . I thought it was magnificent in terms of setting and imagery and it packed an unexpected emotional punch which was absent in the first movie. I wanted to see it twice before I wrote my review and I am confident in saying it is superior to the original film while remaining tonally and esthetically consistent. I loved it. Foremost, I loved the story – complex without being hard to follow and never violating any continuity laid down by its predecessor. There were plot twists I could see coming but then the revelation would have more dimension than I was expecting. There were also genuine surprises in a couple of scenes. The cast is wonderful, with everyone well-suited to their roles (...
Post a Comment
Read more

Oscars

For the first time that I can remember, I have seen all but one of the nominees for the Oscars, which were held last week. At the time, I had seen all of them except for The Post and The Shape of Water , which I finally saw after it won best picture. My thoughts on it and the rest of the nominees: The Shape of Water is essentially Splash re-imagined with the Creature from the Black Lagoon instead of a mermaid, but nowhere near as good. I was impressed by the creature design, certainly, but the rest of the movie felt frustratingly underdone. It was a very typical Guillermo del Toro film, in that sense: I think he’s a gifted visualist, but his stories and characters leave a lot to be desired. Get Out is actually my third favourite movie of 2018, behind mother! and Blade Runner 2049 , so if I had been an Academy voter, this is the one I personally would have chosen for best picture. It’s very smart, very funny and very poignant without being preachy. It’s really brilliant,...
Post a Comment
Read more

IPO Statement

This weekly blog is intended (like most people’s) to be a space where I can talk about the things I’m interested in. I’ll be using it to post critical reviews of movies, books and whatever else I might want to unload my mind about. In general, I’m going to keep things as positive as I can because there’s already enough negativity out there and I would rather spend time focusing on the things I like rather than the things that upset me. I am a rational anarchist. I believe nobody has any right to tell anyone else what to do, but that the limits of anarchy make it unworkable in groups larger than a hundred or so individuals. I think with this many people around, impersonal rules are an unfortunate necessity, but I will only respect the ones that seem fair, in my mind. There is no excuse for injustice or abuse of power and as people and populations change, so must the rules that govern us, meaning they should always be challenged or at least suspected. Art and culture are my pass...
Post a Comment
Read more