What are women made of? From worries about growing up and moving away from children, from beloved and not-so-loved work, from cigarettes and fashionable shoes, stock quotes and relationships for one evening, from trying to find yourself and accept your age. In any case, this is what “women of the XNUMXth century” are made of in the drama of the same name by Michael Mills, nostalgic and heartbreakingly beautiful.
Dorothea (Annette Bening), 55, single-handedly raises her teenage son, lights one cigarette after another, prefers watching Casablanca to a permanent relationship. A child of the Great Depression, once dreamed of a career as a pilot, and became the first female architect in a large firm. Not bad either, but it’s not the life Dorothea once imagined. She tries not to get lost in reflection: “Worrying about whether you are happy is the first way to slide into depression.”
The year is 1979, the scene is Santa Barbara. She rents rooms in a house that is too big for her and her son, makes friends with the guests, occasionally brings men to her place, and most of all she cares about how to raise a good man out of her son, Jamie. Realizing that she can’t cope on her own (the boy is 15, which means that dangerous yard games and interest in girls are on the agenda), he calls Abby (Greta Gerwig) and Julie (Elle Fanning) as allies.
Abby is 24, has red hair and cervical cancer. She looks at the world through a camera lens, dances when it’s really bad, and slips her son Dorothea radical feminist literature. 17-year-old Julie, the daughter of a psychiatrist, is addicted to self-destruction and needs help no less than Jamie. The boy is in love with her, which does not make things easier.
This is a timeless dialogue about what it means to be a woman. Very personal, honest and full of love
They are all women of the twentieth century. Lost and strong, fragile and courageous, who knew the need and learned to rise after the falls. The end of the 1970s is in the yard, which means that the era of punk will soon come to an end, depression and terrible wars are behind, ahead are HIV, global warming, the crisis of 2000 and a lot of changes that are hard to imagine.
Ahead of everyone (including Jamie) are years of life full of discoveries, trial and error, bitter experience and happiness. It remains behind the scenes, but it is obvious that Jamie, his character and attitude to the world will be shaped by the women who were next to him at his tender age. Each influences in its own way — conversations, music, own example.
Director Mike Mills does not pretend to write a collective portrait of a woman of the past century. The image of Dorothea, who was born in 1924, is all the more distant from our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, who grew up in different realities. And yet the picture of «Women of the XNUMXth century» is universal and understandable. By and large, this is a timeless dialogue about what it means to be a woman, very personal, honest, full of love.