20th Century Women

''20th Century Women'' is a 2016 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film written and directed by Mike Mills and starring Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig, Lucas Jade Zumann and Billy Crudup. The film is set in 1970s Southern California and based in part on Mills' childhood.

The film was produced by Annapurna Pictures in 2015, and had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival on October 8, 2016, and was theatrically released on December 28, 2016, by A24. The film was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actress for Bening, as well as for Best Original Screenplay at the 89th Academy Awards.

Plot

In 1979, 15-year-old Jamie Fields is a high school student living in a Santa Barbara boarding house run by his single mother, 55-year-old Dorothea. Their tenants are 24-year-old Abbie Porter, a photographer being treated for cervical cancer, and William, a carpenter and mechanic. Jamie's best friend is 17-year-old Julie Hamlin, who often spends the night with Jamie but chooses not to have sex with him because she believes it would destroy their friendship.

Dorothea, concerned that she cannot connect with her son, asks Julie and Abbie to help raise him. When Jamie learns about his mother's plan, he runs away to Los Angeles with his friends to attend a rock concert. When Jamie returns from the show, Julie tells him that she had unprotected sex with a classmate and is worried that she is pregnant. Jamie buys a home pregnancy test kit for Julie, which comes back negative. Jamie also offers Abbie moral support by accompanying her to her doctor's appointment, where Abbie learns that she is cancer-free, but will likely never have children. To thank Jamie, Abbie tells him about how she was forced to leave her friends in New York and return to Santa Barbara after her cancer diagnosis, which was brought on by her mother's use of DES, a fertility drug.

One day, Dorothea and Julie discuss the fact that Dorothea has only pursued relationships with "safe" men, as opposed to men she is truly attracted to, including William. In response, Dorothea asks Abbie to show her "the modern world." At a punk club, William kisses Dorothea, but she rejects him due to his sexual relationship with Abbie. When William ends his relationship with Abbie, Abbie warns Jamie and Julie that they must leave Santa Barbara if they want to succeed in life.

Later, Abbie takes Jamie to a club where he gets drunk and kisses a woman. Meanwhile, Dorothea teaches William how to pursue a relationship with women, as opposed to seeking one night stands. When Abbie and Jamie return, Abbie shows Dorothea photographs she took of Jamie. Dorothea realizes that Jamie will never feel totally comfortable around her.

Jamie becomes curious about female sexuality, and Abbie lends him a book on gender inequality; when he reads it to Dorothea, she asks Abbie to stop teaching him about the feminist movement. The tension between Abbie and Dorothea comes to a head during a tenant dinner, where Abbie announces that she is menstruating. She grows angry at the tenants' discomfort and makes all of the men at the table say the word "menstruation". This inspires Julie to recount her first sexual encounter at age 14, which greatly upsets Jamie.

Jamie tells Julie that he no longer wants her to spend the night. Julie is hurt but convinces Jamie to take a road trip along the California coastline. Jamie tells Julie that he loves her, but Julie says she cares about him too much to have sex. A fight ensues, during which Julie accuses him of only being nice to have sex with her, and Jamie disappears. By the time Dorothea, William, and Abbie arrive to search for him, Jamie has returned. Jamie admits to Dorothea that he was hurt when she asked Abbie and Julie for help because it made her seem incapable of raising him. The two make up and head back to Los Angeles on their own. Dorothea tells Jamie about her relationship with Jamie's father.

An epilogue shows the events that unfold in subsequent years: Julie moves to New York City to attend NYU, eventually losing touch with Jamie and Dorothea. She falls in love with a classmate named Nicholas and moves to Paris. They choose to never have children of their own. Abbie stays in Santa Barbara, marrying and starting a photography studio in her garage. Against her doctor's diagnosis, she conceives two boys by the age of 34 with her husband, Dave. William lives with Dorothea for another year before moving to Sedona to open a pottery store. Dorothea meets a man in 1983 and stays with him until her death from cancer in 1999. A few years after Dorothea's death, Jamie marries and has a son. He tries to describe Dorothea to his son but finds it to be an impossible task.

Cast

Production

Development

Mills took inspiration from his mother and sister to create the characters of Dorothea and Abbie, stating: "It felt like I was raised by my mom and sisters, so I was always appealing to women in the punk scene or women in my world. I always leaned to them to figure out my life as a straight white guy. So I wanted to make a movie about that." While the character of Jamie reflects his own experiences, Mills wrote the character of Julie based on the experiences of one of his friends. Mills has also described the film as a "loveletter" to the women who raised him, and though the film is autobiographical, he also noted that it is fictionalized, explaining, "With all these characters, what guides me is the real person. Of course, I'm cinematizing real people, and you can never get them right or show all of their dimensions, but that's very much what my mom was like." After finishing the script, Mills brought it to Annapurna Pictures, who signed onto the film after liking Mills's previous film '' Beginners''.

Casting

In May 2015, Annette Bening, Greta Gerwig, and Elle Fanning joined the cast, with Bening set to play a single mother, Gerwig a young sophisticated photographer, and Fanning a provocative friend of the single mother's teenage son. On August 3, 2015, Billy Crudup was cast in a supporting role.

While preparing for their roles in the film, Bening watched films Mills's mother loved. The two also had extensive talks about Mills's mother. Gerwig prepared for her role by taking photography lessons, learning how to use a camera, listening to records, reading books, and watching films, and also spoke with Mills's sister, whom the character is based upon. Fanning was given '' The Road Less Traveled'' by M. Scott Peck to prepare.

Filming

Principal photography on the film began on September 8, 2015, in Southern California, and production concluded on October 27, 2015. The film was shot over 35 days, with filming mainly taking place in Los Angeles, with exteriors shot in Santa Barbara. When filming there, a stray tuxedo cat appeared into the set, and the director decided to include him in some scenes in the film, becoming an important part of the plot.

Music

Roger Neill composed the film's score.

The soundtracked music consists of:
* Don't Worry About the Government – Talking Heads
* (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais – The Clash
* This Heart of Mine – Fred Astaire
* In a Sentimental Mood – Benny Goodman and his Orchestra
* Fairytale in the Supermarket – The Raincoats
* As Time Goes By – Rudy Vallee
* I've Had It – Black Flag
* Media Blitz – The Germs
* Drugs – Talking Heads
* Chant D'Amour – Lars Clutterham
* Love in a Void – Siouxsie and the Banshees
* Basin Street Blues – Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five
* Cheree – Suicide
* Gut Feeling / (Slap Your Mammy) – Devo
* Vag Punch – Phlask
* D.J. – David Bowie
* Lila Engel (Lilac Angel) – Neu!
* The Big Country – Talking Heads
* So Blue Love – Brick Fleagle
* Nervous Breakdown – Black Flag
* After Hours on Dream Street – Sandy Williams
* Why Can't I Touch It – Buzzcocks

Release

In June 2016, A24 acquired U.S distribution rights to the film. The film had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival as the Centerpiece on October 8, 2016. It was also screened at the AFI Fest on November 16, 2016. The film was scheduled for a limited release on December 25, 2016, but was pushed back to December 28.

Reception

Box office

The film entered wide release in the United States on January 20, 2017, grossing $1,385,336 in its first weekend, ranking 17th overall. It went on to gross a total of $5,664,764.

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 88% based on 226 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''20th Century Women'' offers Annette Bening a too-rare opportunity to shine in a leading role – and marks another assured step forward for writer-director Mike Mills." On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 83 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Owen Gleiberman of ''Variety'' gave the film a positive review, writing: "The best thing about the movie is Bening's performance as Dorothea Fields, who's portrayed as a very particular kind of contradictory free spirit. Divorced and proud, with a lot of heart and soul but even more over-sharing flakiness". David Rooney of ''The Hollywood Reporter'' also gave the film a positive review, writing: "Mills uses some of the same devices as ''Beginners'' to illuminate his characters' cultural formation, notably historic montages of their birth years or backgrounds prior to coming together. And he also glances ahead to their future lives, after the arc of the movie. But the quilting is more seamless here because the eccentricities are so integral to the writing and performances."

The Writers Guild Foundation listed the script as one of the best of the 2010s, describing the film as "an excellent study in character development. The script uses narrated flashbacks to tell each main character's unique story, bringing us further into their world and allowing us to care more deeply about them. This different take on exposition makes us think about how we hold onto key facts and images that we know about certain people".

Accolades

References

External links

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Official screenplay

{{Mike Mills

2016 films
2016 comedy-drama films
2010s coming-of-age comedy-drama films
2010s English-language films
2010s feminist films
A24 (company) films
American coming-of-age comedy-drama films
American feminist comedy films
Annapurna Pictures films
Films about mother–son relationships
Films about parenting
Films about puberty
Films directed by Mike Mills
Films produced by Anne Carey
Films produced by Megan Ellison
Films set in 1979
Films set in Santa Barbara, California
Films shot in California
2010s American films
2016 independent films