I rarely see a perfect little film and know I will want to watch it again and again. 20th Century Women is one, a feminist Avalon for the 21st century. Just as Barry Levinson's 1990 film traced the dissolving effect of television on extended family ties, writer/director Mike Mills limns a burgeoning digital culture that challenges old ways of being.
Using vignettes that weave a narrative, Mills shows evolving gender roles and relationships against a backdrop of cataclysmic technological and environmental changes. The confusion it creates for males and females alike is insightfully depicted.
Generational and gender roles are negotiated and renegotiated in a world often changing beyond the imagination of characters to conceive it. A generation that refused to discuss emotions, denying and dismissing them, is contrasted with generations that wallow in emotions seeking authenticity in a digital world that promotes distance. "Thinking about things is a short-cut to unhappiness," opines lead actor Annette Benning, expressing the can-do philosophy of the greatest generation.
Benning, always a consummate actress who conveys as much through facial expressions and body language as words, heads a cast that includes Elle Fanning and Billy Crudup.
