Review of This Changes Everything (2019) by Thaoanhluu — 15 Sep 2021

How many films which have a story about females did you watch? Is it enough to count it on your ten fingers? I think they are enough for me. I have watched some movies for a long time ago such as Hunger Games, Maleficient, Moana, and Raya and The Last Dragon. The latest film that I watched is This Changes Everything. From the title of the film, we could guess a little bit about the content of the film. It may be an action to make something different that never happens. This Changes Everything is a documentary film that uncovers one of the most confounding dilemmas in the film industry, especially gender inequality in Hollywood. The film was produced by Donahue, many featuring interviews with Geena Davis, Natalie Portman, Reese Witherspoon, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Maria Giese. The film premiered at DOC NYC in November 2015 and was released theatrically by Gathr in 2016. It won the 2019 feature-length documentary award. Gender discrimination was the argument in the film and also existed for many decades. If no one has action, gender discrimination has never disappeared. This Changes Everything is meaningful action. .

This Changes Everything has one hour thirty-five minutes in length. It has three strongest logical arguments: we need more diversity on the screen, more stories from women, and more female directors. The audience could see them in the first half of the film. In the second half, they collected the research and the evidence to fight for gender equality. Do they win the case when they send the document to the court? .

Some scenes in the film really touched my heart. First, Chloe, who is an actress, talked about her character when she was in the period. I could see her face showed disappointment because her male crew didn’t really know what happen to support her. I believe any woman could feel like her and empathize with her. Second, Maria is a director but she didn’t have many opportunities to do her passion like her colleague, male director. When she sat next to her daughter, she said that she won’t let what happened to her will happen to her daughter. She said with a firm tone of voice. At that moment, I could feel any mother who always loves their children unconditionally even they face difficult issues. .

The director told first-hand by some of Hollywood’s leading voices behind and in front of the camera with different angles. After someone was talking, the data and some short scenes of the movie related to would follow. I was convinced by the evidence. He also did a great job to have featuring interviews with different races women as White, Black, and Asian. However, This Changes Everything missed the element of the intersectionality of race. Although they had some voices in the film are black women. However, they just talked about gender inequality. They didn’t mention the race issues that could happen to a black. .

Finally, most of the voices in the film are women. They talked about gender inequality in Hollywood. They tried to do everything to increase women’s presence: female writers, female actresses, and female directors. However, the director of the film is male. I believe this is the missing element that harms the credibility of the film. .

Overall, the film, This Changes Everything, is great. It reached out to the gender inequality in Hollywood. We need to take action. We want to have more films about females is produced. Each film will be a voice to get equality in gender. Female is 50% of occupying the world, so they deserve to have more presence not only in the entertainment industry but also in any industries.