20th Century Women

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    Feminist Rating: ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ 


    Overall Rating: ✮✮✮✮


    In 20th Century Women, Dorothea Fields (Annette Bening) is raising her adolescent son, Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), in Santa Barbara, California in 1979. She and Jamie live in a large house with an open-door policy and two tenants, Abbie (Greta Gerwig) and William (Billy Crudup). Julie (Elle Fanning) who is Jamie’s friend/crush is also a frequent overnight guest who sneaks into Jamie’s room through his window, unbeknownst to Dorothea. 

    Dorothea is a tough 55-year-old woman raised during The Depression who is the matriarch of her bustling home and she provides structure in the midst of what would otherwise be chaos. She would obviously rather be seen as a friend and confidant than a landlord and she plays the part by listening intently, while taking drags of her cigarette, to whoever needs to talk. The only person that she cannot seem to communicate with is Jamie and she feels that whatever is going on in Jamie’s head is just out of her reach, that he is living a life that she will never fully be able to see or understand. Dorothea is a single-mother who worries that she is not able to contribute enough to Jamie’s upbringing. She enlists the help of Julie and Abbie to share their lives with him and help him transition from adolescence to adulthood. 



    Julie and Abbie have two very different ways of raising Jamie. Abbie believes the best way to help him to navigate this new stage of his life is to introduce him to punk rock and feminist literature and Jamie’s understanding of it leads to endearing and amusing events. Abbie is eccentric but in a way that is not at all like the “quirky girl in an indie film” archetype (think Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Zooey Deschanel in literally any of her movies). Abbie is awkward (again, not cute-awkward like Deschanel) but awkward in a way that will make you cringe but also in a way that a human female can relate to. Gerwig has a knack for assuming the role of the woman we all see ourselves in yet don’t really want to. Basically Abbie is the sort of character that won’t make you go, “OMG that’s sooo me!” but more like, “Ugh, that’s me.” 

    Julie, on the other hand, is a bright and vibrant picture of self-confidence, wordliness, and independence which conceals the ugly underbelly of loneliness, uncertainty, and vulnerability of any teenage girl. Julie believes herself to be knowledgable in matters of love, sex, and relationships and she exudes the kind of confidence that you only see in a young woman who desperately wants to be taken seriously by adults. Fanning brings a surprising level of credibility and expertise to the role and is able to convey unwarranted confidence, teenage rebellion, and masked vulnerability all at once. 


    As for Bening, it is impossible to describe her talent and ability with common adjectives and words like strong, confident, honest, intriguing, compelling, or masterly cannot convey her unparalleled prowess. What she brings to the role of Dorothea is more than a God-given gift, it is a certain type of capability that can only come with her extensive resume and decades of experience. Though she is not generally listed amongst the greats such as Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Ingrid Bergman, Jessica Lange, and Viola Davis, she is one of the most talented actresses of our time who is rarely afforded the luxury of high-profile roles, unlike Meryl Streep.

    Though the title of the movie literally contains the word “women”, the film is very much about how the female characters relate and interact with the male characters, namely William (who brings so little to the film that he may as well have been excluded) and, mostly, Jamie. However, it does allow the women to be interesting, messy, and eccentric in a way that is not tired or cliche. Their characters are not underwritten like so many female roles in Hollywood and the serve as the perfect vehicle for these brilliant actresses to show off their talent and experience. 

     Dorothea, Abbie, and Julie are vicious yet vulnerable and refreshingly complicated. There is no one significant or climactic event as the film serves as more of an aimless portrayal of these women's lives. Though the the story is really about Jamie (modeled after the film’s own director, Mike Mills), it robustly and proudly acknowledges the women who raised, shaped, and inspired him without conveying them as anything less than (or more than) human. 

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