Review of 20th Century Women (2016) by Gregory F — 11 Feb 2017
A semi-autobiography, coming of age story by writer-director Mike Mills brings us five characters in the summer of 1979, a Santa Barbara single mom and boardinghouse landlord (Annette Bening) decides the best way she can "man-up" her teenage son (Lucas Jade Zumann) is to enlist her young tenants - a quirky punk photographer (Greta Gerwig), a mellow handyman (Billy Crudup) and her son's shrewd best friend (Elle Fanning) - to serve as role models in a changing world.
20th Century Women triumph through many individual moment and fantastic nuanced performances by Benning - she's a perfectly braided mixture of conviction and confusion, clinging to her certainties like life-rafts in a changing world, but then the movie as a whole is rudderless. It never achieves an emotional power surge.
This review of 20th Century Women (2016) was written by Gregory F on 11 Feb 2017.
20th Century Women has generally received very positive reviews.
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