20th Century Women

Writer-Director Mike Mills has impressed with earlier films Thumbsucker and Beginners, which won lead actor Christopher Plummer an Oscar. While Beginners was about Mills's father, 20th Century Women is a loving dedication to his mother, played prodigiously by Annette Bening. It's also a wonderful character study for all of its players.

The setting is Santa Barbara 1979, where mid-50s single mother, Dorothea (Bening), owns a huge house where she lives with her 15-year-old son, Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann in a memorable performance). Also sharing the fixer-upper property are paying tenants - 26-year-old photographer Abbie (Greta Gerwig) and William (Billy Crudup). Rounding out the extended family is Jamie's childhood friend, the depressed and sexually experienced Julie (Elle Fanning).

It's a great cast and they seem to relish Mills' insightful and refreshing script that takes us through the political, cultural and musical signs of the times - from Abbie, with her dyed red hair dancing her cares away at punk concerts, to everyone watching President Carter give a badly received speech on TV, to Jamie enjoying the exhilaration of skateboarding.

The plot ambles along, taking you on its journey, with the one major inciting incident causing Dorothea to think that Jamie needs more than her for adolescent guidance. Rather than asking a male to mentor him, she enlists Abbie and Julie to help him become a 'good man', resulting in humour as they introduce him to feminist literature. Jamie takes it to heart and gets punched out by a young thug when he tells him his girlfriend probably isn't having an orgasm if he isn't giving her clitoral stimulation.

20th Century Women does indeed look at that era's impact on the women in it, with Dorothea's life spanning the 1920s to nearly the turn of the millennium. It uses music, voiceover narrations from the characters, photographs and other archival footage to weave its spell of nostalgia, hope, and love. It's a winner.