In 1979, 15-year-old Jamie Fields lives in Santa Barbara with his 55-year-old single mother, Dorothea, and their two tenants: Abbie Porter, a 24-year-old 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.
Concerned she is having trouble connecting with her son, Dorothea asks Abbie and Julie to help raise him, but Jamie responds to this news by running away to Los Angeles with some friends to attend a rock concert. When he gets back, Julie tells him she had unprotected sex and is worried she will get pregnant. Jamie accompanies Abbie to a doctor's appointment, where she learns she is cancer-free, but will likely be unable to have children, and he reads a magazine article about home pregnancy tests. He buys one for Julie, and it comes back negative. To thank Jamie for his support, Abbie makes him a mixtape, and she begins to confide in him, such as about how she moved back home from New York after her cancer diagnosis, but her mother could not handle the fact that the cancer was caused by her use of DES, a fertility drug, while Abbie was in utero, so Abbie moved in with Dorothea.
One day, after seeing Julie sneak out Jamie's window, Dorothea talks with her, and they end up discussing the fact that Dorothea has not had any real relationships since Jamie's father left years earlier. Dorothea asks Abbie to show her "the modern world," so they go to a punk club, where William kisses Dorothea, but she rejects him due to his sexual relationship with Abbie. After Dorothea leaves, Abbie gets in a fight and William tells her he no longer wants to sleep with her. Abbie goes to talk to Jamie and, finding him in bed with Julie, says Julie is disempowering Jamie and tells the teens to not get stuck in Santa Barbara.
Later, Jamie asks Abbie to take him to the club, and he gets drunk and kisses a woman. Meanwhile, Dorothea teaches William how to pursue a relationship, as opposed to a one-night stand. When Abbie tells Dorothea about Jamie's night, Dorothea is not upset, though she is wistful that, as his mother, she can never see what Jamie is like out in the world.
Abbie lends Jamie some books about feminism, and he finds them interesting, but Dorothea thinks they are too much for him and scolds Abbie. At a dinner party, Abbie says she is tired because she is menstruating, and, frustrated by the discomfort the word causes, she makes all of the men at the table say "menstruation". This inspires Julie to talk about her first period and her first sexual encounter, which ends the gathering.
Jamie tells Julie he no longer wants her to spend the night if she just wants to talk. Hurt, she suggests they take a road trip up the coast. At a hotel, Jamie says he loves Julie, but she says they are too close to have sex. They argue, and Julie accuses Jamie of being like "the other guys", so Jamie storms off. Julie calls Dorothea, but by the time she, Abbie, and William arrive, Jamie has returned. Dorothea tells Jamie that she asked Abbie and Julie for help because she wants Jamie to be happier than she is, and he says he thought they were doing fine already. The two make up and return to Santa Barbara on their own, and Dorothea talks openly about her feelings and dreams for the first time.
An epilogue reveals that Julie will go on the pill, attend NYU, lose touch with Jamie and Dorothea, fall in love, move to Paris, and choose to never have children. Abbie will stay in Santa Barbara, get married, set up a photography studio in her garage, and successfully give birth to two sons. William will live with Dorothea for another year, move to Sedona, open a pottery store, get married, get divorced, and remarry. Dorothea will meet a man in 1983 and stay with him until her death from metastaticlung cancer in 1999. Years after Dorothea's death, Jamie will get married and have a son, to whom he will try, unsuccessfully, to describe Dorothea.
Kai Lennox as Reporter/Abbie's future husband, Dave
Finnegan Seeker Bell as Brian
Production
Development
While the character of Jamie reflects his own experiences,[9] the characters of Dorothea and Abbie were inspired by Mills' mother and older sister, respectively, and he wrote the character of Julie based on the experiences of several of his friends.[10] He said: "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."[11] Mills has described the film as a "love letter" to the women who raised him,[12] and, although it 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."[13] After finishing the script, Mills brought it to Annapurna Pictures, who, liking Mills's previous film Beginners, agreed to produce 20th Century Women.[14]
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.[15] On August 3, 2015, Billy Crudup was cast in a supporting role.[16]
While preparing for her role in the film, Bening watched films Mills' mother loved[17] and had extensive talks with Mills about his mom.[18] Gerwig prepared for her role by taking photography lessons, learning how to use a camera, listening to records, reading books, and watching films, and she also spoke with Mills' sister, whom her character is based upon.[19][20][21][22] Fanning was given The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck to help her prepare.[23]
Filming
Principal photography on the film began on September 8, 2015, in Southern California,[24][25] and concluded on October 27, 2015.[26] The film was shot over 35 days, mainly in Los Angeles, with exteriors shot in Santa Barbara.[27] At one point, a stray tuxedo cat wandered onto the set, and Mills decided to include him in some scenes in the film.
In June 2016, A24 acquired the U.S. distribution rights to the film.[29] It had its world premiere on October 8, 2016, as the Centerpiece film of the New York Film Festival,[30] and it was screened at AFI Fest on November 16.[31] The film's limited release was scheduled to begin on December 25, but it was pushed back to December 28.[32][33]
Reception
Box office
20th Century Women entered wide release in the United States on January 20, 2017. It grossed $1,385,336 that weekend, ranking 17th at the box office. The film went on to earn a total of $5,664,764 domestically and $1,550,042 in international markets, for a worldwide box office total of $7,214,806.[34]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 88% of 230 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.8/10.The website's 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."[35]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 83 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[36]
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".[37] 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."[38]
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".[39]
Annette Carol Bening is an American actress. With a career spanning over four decades, she is known for her versatile work across screen and stage. Bening has received numerous accolades, including a BAFTA Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and nominations for five Academy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award and two Tony Awards, making her one of few artists nominated for the Triple Crown of Acting without winning.
Noah Baumbach is an American filmmaker. He is known for making comedies set in New York City and his works are inspired by filmmakers such as Woody Allen and Whit Stillman. His frequent collaborators include Wes Anderson, Adam Driver, and his wife, Greta Gerwig.
Mary Elle Fanning is an American actress. She made her film debut as a child as the younger version of her sister Dakota Fanning's character in the drama film I Am Sam (2001). She appeared in several other films as a child actress, including Daddy Day Care (2003), Babel (2006), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Phoebe in Wonderland, and the miniseries The Lost Room (2006). She then had leading roles in Sofia Coppola's drama Somewhere (2010) and J. J. Abrams' science fiction film Super 8 (2011).
Michael Chadbourne Mills is an American film and music video director, writer and graphic designer. He made his directorial debut with the independent film Thumbsucker (2005). His followup films include Beginners (2010), 20th Century Women (2016), and C'mon, C'mon (2021). He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for 20th Century Women.
The New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director is an award given by the New York Film Critics Circle, honoring the finest achievements in filmmaking.
Greta Celeste Gerwig is an American actress, screenwriter, and film director. Initially known for working on mumblecore films, she has since expanded from acting in and co-writing independent films to directing major studio films. Gerwig was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world in 2018.
Kirk Bovill is an American actor, writer, voice-over artist and producer. His film credits include Vice, 20th Century Women, Free State of Jones, Get On Up, Contraband, Texas Killing Fields, White Lightnin', The Butterfly Circus, and God Bless America.
Robbie Brenner is an American film executive, a partner at The Firm and the president of its film division. As President of Mattel Films, she leads strategy in developing and producing movies based on Mattel’s brands and IP. In 2023, Brenner produced Barbie, directed and co-written by Greta Gerwig, which grossed over $1.4 billion and set numerous global box office records.
Alexandra Shipp is an American actress and singer who rose to prominence for portraying singer Aaliyah in the Lifetime television film Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B (2014) and Kimberly Woodruff in the film Straight Outta Compton (2015).
Maggie's Plan is a 2015 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Rebecca Miller, based on an original story by Karen Rinaldi. The film stars Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, Travis Fimmel, Wallace Shawn, Ida Rohatyn, and Julianne Moore.
Wiener-Dog is a 2016 American anthology comedy film directed and written by Todd Solondz. Starring an ensemble cast led by Ellen Burstyn, Kieran Culkin, Julie Delpy, Danny DeVito, Greta Gerwig, Tracy Letts, and Zosia Mamet, the film serves as a spin-off from Solondz's 1995 film Welcome to the Dollhouse, which also features the character of Dawn Wiener. The film is also inspired by the 1966 French drama Au Hasard Balthazar, directed by Robert Bresson.
Jackie is a 2016 biographical drama film directed by Pablo Larraín and written by Noah Oppenheim. The film stars Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy. Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, and John Hurt also star; it was Hurt's final film released in his lifetime before his death in January 2017. The film follows Kennedy in the days when she was First Lady in the White House and her life immediately following the assassination of her husband, United States President John F. Kennedy, in 1963. It is partly based on Theodore H. White's Life magazine interview with the widow at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, in November 1963.
Lady Bird is a 2017 American coming-of-age comedy drama film written and directed by Greta Gerwig in her solo directorial debut, starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Lois Smith. Set in Sacramento, California from fall 2002 to fall 2003, it focuses on a high school senior who shares a turbulent relationship with her mother.
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool is a 2017 biographical romantic drama film directed by Paul McGuigan and starring Annette Bening and Jamie Bell, with a cast that includes Vanessa Redgrave and Julie Walters. It is based on the memoir of the same name by Peter Turner, which tells of his relationship with Academy Award-winning American actress Gloria Grahame in 1970s Liverpool and, some years later, her death from stomach cancer.
Lucas Jade Zumann is an American actor. He played Milo in the horror film Sinister 2, Jamie Fields in the indie film 20th Century Women and Gilbert Blythe in Anne with an E.
Little Women is a 2019 American coming-of-age period drama film written and directed by Greta Gerwig. It is the seventh film adaptation of the 1868 novel of the same name by Louisa May Alcott. It chronicles the lives of the March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—in Concord, Massachusetts, during the 19th century. It stars an ensemble cast consisting of Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Streep, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, James Norton, Louis Garrel, and Chris Cooper.
Eliza Jane Scanlen is an Australian actress. She rose to prominence portraying Tabitha Ford in the Australian soap opera Home and Away (2016), before receiving critical acclaim by playing a troubled teenager in the HBO miniseries Sharp Objects (2018). In 2022, she starred in the Showtime series The First Lady as young Eleanor Roosevelt.
Barbie is a 2023 fantasy comedy film directed by Greta Gerwig from a screenplay she wrote with Noah Baumbach. Based on the eponymous fashion dolls by Mattel, it is the first live-action Barbie film after numerous animated films and specials. Starring Margot Robbie as the title character and Ryan Gosling as Ken, the film follows them on a journey of self-discovery through Barbieland and the real world following an existential crisis. It is also a commentary regarding patriarchy and the effects of feminism. The supporting cast includes America Ferrera, Michael Cera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, and Will Ferrell.
20th Century Women (Music from the Motion Picture) is the soundtrack to the 2016 film 20th Century Women directed by Mike Mills. It features punk rock, pop and jazz music selections from Talking Heads, the Raincoats, Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five, David Bowie, Devo, Siouxsie and the Banshees amongst others, and an original score composed by Roger Neill. The album was released through Rhino Records on December 30, 2016.
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