Deborah Ross

Mother superior

And unlike Natalie Portman’s Jackie Kennedy you don’t want to scream ‘Enough!’ after 90 minutes

Unlike with buses, you wait ages and ages for one fabulous film as framed by the older female perspective to come along and then there’s absolutely no saying when the next one will be, or if there will ever be another. (Indeed, a recent study of 2,000 films found that women in the 42–65 age bracket are given less and less to say while dialogue for men of the same age actually increases.) So don’t let this pass, and don’t do so having dismissed it as ‘a feminist film’ because it’s emotionally smart about everybody. It just takes in that portion of the human race usually left out, is all.

20th Century Women is written and directed by Mike Mills, whose previous film, Beginners (2011), paid homage to his father, who came out as gay at 75 and was portrayed by Christopher Plummer in an Oscar-winning performance. This time round, it’s a film loosely based on his mother, Dorothea, as played by Annette Bening who, for her performance, deserves thousands and thousands of Oscars — tipped on to her lawn, flung into any open window, laid by her breakfast setting every morning — but didn’t even earn a nomination. You may draw your own conclusions. I have drawn mine.

The film is set in Santa Barbara, California, in 1979, when Dorothea is 55 and her son, a version of Mills now called Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann, a true find), is 15. Dorothea is divorced, and Jamie’s father phones on his birthday and at Christmas but they’ve lost touch, pretty much, so she’s raising him on her own. Dorothea grew up in the Depression, wanted to be a pilot, now works as a draughtswoman in an all-male office. She lives in a sprawling, ramshackle house and rents out rooms.

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