20th Century Women
2016 · Directed by Mike Mills
Original language: English
- drama
The story
In 1979 Santa Barbara, California, Dorothea Fields is a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie, at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women – Abbie, a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields' home and Julie, a savvy and provocative teenage neighbour – to help with Jamie's upbringing.
What it’s like
Warm, sun-faded 1979 California, shot with a loose, observational eye: sunlit kitchens, wood-panelled rooms and wide Santa Barbara streets rendered in soft, slightly grainy natural light, with a warm amber palette that turns cool and blue at dusk. Camera moves are unhurried, often handheld and drifting from one character to another mid-conversation, and the film punctuates its scenes with still photographs, captions and bursts of punk and new-wave tracks that spill from record players and car radios over a gentle, wistful score. The overall feel is cozy melancholy with a jittery, restless undercurrent, the kind of film that suits a lazy weekend afternoon, a long evening with a glass of wine, or a quiet rewatch. Pacing is conversational and digressive, more interested in talk and small domestic moments than in plot, and the emotional register is tender, funny and candid. Its central arc follows a mother trying to understand her teenage son by enlisting two younger women, and the relationships shift gradually from awkwardness toward closeness. The film contains some sexual references and frank adult talk, but no violence and little peril, so it lands as gentle and humane. It is for viewers who enjoy character-led, intergenerational stories about family, friendship and growing up.
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