Review of 20th Century Women (2016) by Sean G — 21 Jan 2017

This delightful and brilliant indie film, a message from the late 1970s is much more interesting than the stiff title or the trailer would suggest. Surprisingly this is the ultimate romantic comedy, and not a sentimental one.

During the whole longish film we are rooting for Benning and her son, and his friends, Elle Fanning and Greta Gerwig, who are all pitch perfect; too unite with their love-interests. And the film, (from an honest male fantasy POV) has its considerable tension and sexual attraction, so we keep guessing and root for all these complex and vulnerable characters, a 14 years old teenage boy, his lonely and bitter mother, to finally unite with the person who they love and desire, and who silently love and desire them.

The son with his best friend (Fanning) who denies sex only to him, because they are too close. Or the mysterious and attractive, the used-to-be-beautiful self-destructive architect mother who rejects her living-in carpenter friend (Bill Crudup.

). And finally Gerwig, a dyed hair punk photographer surviving cervical cancer, who drives all the dinner guests crazy gently forcing them to say in unison together the word "menstruation". Unusual and touching the film satisfies our dramatic and sensual expectations only in summarizing, hurried montages and voice-overs, dryly commenting the characters' future.

Very few intimate moments are here, no-one dares to express their repressed emotions by intimacy, by physical contact. This is a unique dramatic and cinematic gem. Long and slow, but rewarding in a 20th century kind of way.