20th Century Women

The year is 1979 and Dorothea Fields finds herself in her 50s raising a teenage boy, Jaime, while running a house in Santa Barbara that is always going through renovations. Jaime’s father is not in the picture but who needs a father when your mother rents rooms to a handful of particular individuals ranging from different generations. Director Mike Mills casts three powerful actresses, Annette Bening, Greta Gerwig and Elle Fanning, to fill the roles of the different women in Jaime’s life and they help create three compelling female characters that pulls you in. The problem? These three exceptional characters are subsided for a coming-of-age narrative that fails to compare to the women that help raised it.

Set in Santa Barbara, the film follows Dorothea Fields (Annette Bening), a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie (newcomer Lucas Jade Zumann, in a breakout performance) at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women in Jamie's upbringing - via Abbie (Greta Gerwig), a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields' home, and Julie (Elle Fanning), a savvy and provocative teenage neighbor.

Being a single parent is tough, it is even tougher when your son is a teenager dealing with romances, the freeing energy of punk music and playing games which entails panting real hard while someone pulls on their diaphragm. After a trip to the hospital, Annette Bening’s Dorothea realizes she might not be able to raise her son by herself and requests the aide of the different women in Jaime’s life. Dorothea does not need help with the physical needs of raising a child in providing shelter and nutrition but the psychological needs of raising in a child in providing the knowledge about life, women and what it means to be a man. Each female was born in a different generation and dealing with their own issues that life has handed them and this leads to Jaime beco...

Rather a 20th century tale!

You have seen films like this often. This is where a chick film meets art. Art means not the flick full of inspiration, message, awareness. But the presentation was so pleasant. The screenplay carefully picked the right events, and the dialogues were good. The book fanatics would go and look for the original source it was adapted from. But the truth is it was an originally written screenplay, and that's why it got a nomination at the recent Oscars. Another way to say, it inspired by the director's own childhood life, being raised by his mother and sister.

This is the story of a single mother, whose teenage son is struggling to blend with the world. Then they have two roommates, one a woman in her 20s and a middle aged man. Beside a girl of her son's age visits regularly and sometimes secretly. So how all these people influence in the boy's life is the story that revealed. His mother being from different generation and not understanding the present world, which was the year 1979, where the film sets in.

From the director of 'Beginners', yet another unique film. Thematically there's nothing special, though it was carved with the excellent bunch of actors made the difference. I'm not sure the title was perfect for what the film narrated. Yes, if it was Annette Bening's Dorothea's story, then it justifies. But the story does not have one perspective of narration. All the main characters like Bening, Elle, Greta, Crudup and Zumann, shared screen equally. So, instead I would have preferred the title, '20th Century Tale'.

Greta kind of reminded me Kristen Stewart with the hair like that. Two hours long drama with some funs. Really a good film. The topics it brings in for discussion were interesting, especially which is in the current era. Films like this should be watching. It is about the life, people with different characters and ambitions.

7/10

Full review: https://www.tinakakadelis.com/beyond-the-cinerama-dome/2021/12/28/-20th-century-women-review