20th Century Women is a film with a nostalgic appeal to a very specific subset of the moviegoing populace, those who look back on the late 1970s as a high-water mark in the history of American culture. That appeal was largely lost on me. To be certain, it boasts a stellar cast anchored by an almost incomprehensibly good performance from Annette Bening, and it has more than a few laugh-out-loud moments. But it’s also severely lacking in narrative focus, leaving it to function almost entirely on the basis of its ensemble of quirky characters, a group I couldn’t wholeheartedly embrace. Add some obtrusive stylistic touches from director Mike Mills and a muddled message that falls short of the feminist empowerment promised by its premise, and you have a film that I enjoyed far less than the audience around me.
Following the breakout success of Mills’ 2005 Sundance hit Thumbsucker, the director established himself as an early bastion of the twee indie dramedy. With his next feature, 2010’s Beginners, he steered similar themes into more autobiographical waters by dramatizing his father’s revelation — in his 70’s, mind you — that he was both gay and dying from cancer. 20th Century Women tries to recapture the emotional immediacy of Beginners (along with its fixation on cancer) by this time focusing on Mills’ mother, a larger-than-life matriarch played to the hilt by Bening. Intelligent and progressive, Bening’s Dorothea Fields is a force of nature, a late-in-life single mother raising her son in a nurturing environment surrounded by an eclectic adoptive family of boarders in her ramshackle Victorian home.
The film functions less as a story than as a collection of character-driven vignettes, focusing on the two young women (and one extraneous man) that Dorothea has asked to help mold her disaffected teenage son as he awkwardly transitions into manhood. Greta Gerwig plays a post-punk art school dropout with an affinity for feminist literature and a history of cervical cancer, while Elle Fanning is the promiscuous object of our Mills-proxy’s unrequited affections. And then there’s Billy Crudup, a perfunctory conglomeration of masculine stereotypes who serves little purpose beyond attracting the sexual attentions of Gerwig and throwing himself at Bening when he’s not working on her house or her car.
The performances are uniformly outstanding, with the possible exception of Fanning’s limited emotive range. Gerwig and Crudup showcase their exceptional comedic timing, and both have an easy and believablele chemistry with Bening — and Bening is flawless, running the gamut from poised self-control to quiet desperation with the grace of a true pro, all while never missing a comedic beat in the process. But Mills expects this alone to maintain interest, dividing the film into chapters based around each of the central characters. Where the film falters is in its failure to make a point with all of its atmosphere, resorting to denouement via voiceover recounting the outcome of stories that would have been better told on screen than through narration.
Mills’ film is trying to get at some very interesting questions at the heart of topics like culture, identity and sexuality. The problem is, he gets too distracted by flashy post-production effects and exegesis of feminist texts to come to any real conclusions. This is a film worth seeing on the merits of its performances — particularly Bening’s which deserves serious awards-season attention — but those looking for compelling drama will feel short-changed. In an endless sea of indie drama-coms featuring quirky adoptive families, what really make this one stand out? Its gender politics are nothing new, its style is thoroughly unremarkable and its story is practically non-existent. It’s a fun film in spite of its shortcomings, but I for one had hoped for more. Rated R for sexual material, language, some nudity and brief drug use.
Now Playing at Fine Arts Theatre, Regal Biltmore Grande.
3 Stars? This was even better than his previous film beginners.
since when did a film have to have a story? This one does by the way. What a limited viewpoint which misses everything except Bening’s performance. Now I want to read more of your reviews to see what if anything you do like.
I’m with Me on this one. I was floored by this one and it’s stuck in my consciousness playing on an inner loop for four days now. I thought it made “Beginners,” which I loved, look like tic-tac-toe next to 3D chess. When the reviewer has lived for a few more decades he may begin to appreciate the value of characterization over plot. When I was in my twenties, yes, plot mattered. A lot. Now, it’s much less relevant. The ensemble in this movie bring five characters to vivid life and all of them seem like real people and Mills’ script and direction never treat them or us like idiots.
I knew when I was writing this review that I would receive exactly this type of commentary. Bear in mind, my job is not to parrot the consensus opinion, but to express my own — and in my opinion, this movie had some serious flaws. I stated in my review that the film had a very specific demographic appeal; this was a diplomatic way of saying that Mills’ latest is a blatant piece of Boomer-bait. The same generation that currently loves to decry the so-called Millennials is the generation that raised the very objects of their ire through precisely the sort of parenting-by-proxy on display in this film. I’ve never been of the mind that story is the definitive aspect of a given film, but I was a screenwriting major in college so it’s something I do consider. That said, I love Robert Altman, for whom story was always secondary to character. But in order for characterization to supplant story as the focus of a film, your film still has to have a point.
Just saw this at the Cary Theater. I hated “Beginners”, perhaps because my father had died the month before, and I couldn’t handle a filmed version of someone dealing with a father’s death in such a glib manner. I agree with most of what Scott said — it took me a long while to warm up to the film. In the beginning, it didn’t seem to know what it was going to be about, and the odd directorial flourishes, intrusive random photos of rockers, and episodic nature didn’t help.
But along with a superbly naturalistic performance by Bening and an enjoyable and able cast, it did finally try to say something – about feminism, individuality, the rise of a feeling of frustration and disillusionment with a materialistic society, that Planned Parenthood has a useful purpose, that something was changing. No – it wasn’t saying the late 1970s was “a high-water mark in the history of American culture”. There were references to even earlier times – the old 40’s style car, the 40s-style music on the radio. Neither was the director saying that early punk music was the best music ever made — it was just a reflection of what some people were feeling at the time.