20th Century Women

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Due to what I am choosing to diplomatically refer to as “recent political shake-ups,” the future of women’s health center Planned Parenthood looks dark and uncertain. New bills have placed their all-important federal funding in jeopardy, and not the fun kind, where you get to show off how many river names you remember from middle school. In addition to making it more difficult to procure safe abortions, the proposed changes would threaten the availability of birth control and the various medical services that Planned Parenthood offers. If they hope to survive in the years to come, they’ll need grassroots support, and today brings the new that they’ll get a helping hand from the good folks at A24.

There’s a scene in Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women that will be remembered as the film’s funniest, a moment that perfectly captures the essence of its trio of titular female characters. With a tinge of annoyance, Annette Bening’s Dorothea calls out her tenant Abbie, a red-haired punk, for dozing off on the table during a dinner party. “I’m menstruating,” Abbie grumpily retorts. Much to Dorothea’s embarrassment, Abbie then prompts the men at the table to confidently utter the word “menstruation.” Capping off the scene, Elle Fanning’s rebellious 16-year-old Julie breaks into an awkward story about losing her virginity. Three women across three generations, all with varying barometers of what it means to be a woman, and what it means to harness femininity.

In Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women, Greta Gerwig is a red-haired punk who listens to the Talking Heads, takes photographs of her belongings as a sort of pre-Instagram self-portrait series, and is recovering from cervical cancer. In every way, Gerwig’s Abbie defies the stereotypes of female characters we often see in indie movies. She’s not the manic pixie dream girl nor the cool girl who falls for the older single guy, two clichés the character could have easily fallen into. Instead Gerwig gives a career-best performance as a woman full of contradictions.

Early in 20th Century Women, Elle Fanning’s rebellious teenager Julie asks, “Don’t you need a man to raise a man?” With little pause, Annette Bening’s single mother Dorothea assuredly responds, “No, I don’t think so.” The latest from Mike Mills (Thumbsucker, Beginners), finds three women helping raise a teenage boy. It’s a premise that could easily crash and burn in the wrong hands by sacrificing nuance for stereotypes or marginalizing female voices to emphasize a male perspective. Yet 20th Century Women avoids all of that. Instead Mills has made not only one of the best films of the year, but one that unabashedly celebrates the feminine spirit.

According to most people (on the internet, which is where most people live now), 2016 was horrific. It was a year in which we lost some of our best and brightest artists, a year in which we elected a president who will, according to Kate McKinnon’s Hilary Clinton, “kill us all,” and it was a year in which many blockbusters fulfilled the “bust” end of that promise. Despite all of this, 2016 delivered some truly remarkable films; because of all of this, we needed them.

How you define the “best” of something varies from one person to the next. The “best” movies can be the ones crafted with the most artistry, the ones that feel particularly culturally significant, the ones you can’t shake hours, days, or months after seeing them. Or perhaps the best films are the ones you simply love the most and are eager returning to again and again.

Now that the seemingly infinite hell of election season has reached its merciful end, it’s time to move on to what is pretty much the election season of movies: awards season! The Golden Globes, Oscars, industry guilds and various critical bodies will soon hand down their rulings on the best films, performances, and technical achievements of 2016, but before that ball gets rolling and flattens all nuanced criticism in its way, the Independent Spirit Awards will have their say. The nominations for the slightly left-of-center awards program were announced yesterday, and the unusually stellar lineup provides a nice reminder that the whole “2016 was a disaster at the movies!” narrative only applies to Hollywood studio pictures.

It’s 1979 in Santa Barbara: the hippie-dippie ‘70s are about to give way to punk and the wave of nihilism that goes with it, Jimmy Carter frets about a crisis of conscience on the TV set, and one kid’s trying to figure out how he fits into all of it.

If you look back on the last few years of the New York Film Festival, you’ll find a common, though unsurprising theme: a lot of male-dominated narratives, often about white men’s woes and triumphs. Last year’s line-up had The Walk, Steve Jobs and Miles Ahead, 2014 was notable for the premieres of Inherent Vice, Birdman, and Foxcatcher, and the 2013 fest debuted Her, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and Captain Phillips. There have been some notable exceptions, like Carol, Clouds of Sils Maria, and Gone Girl, but overall stories about women have been a relegated to the background at the fest. That is, until this year.