20th Century Women

20th Century Women is set in 1979, before the age of Reagan, well before the birth of the internet, at a time the turmoil of the’60s had pretty well receded and punk music was mesmerizing the young. Dorothea Fields (Annette Bening) is a single mom raising an adolescent son Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann). They have a boarder, Abbie (Greta Gerwig), and a live-in carpenter, William (Billy Crudup), who appear to trade  rent for their work of endlessly renovating the rambling house. Jamie’s best friend Julie (Elle Fanning) regularly sneaks into his room through a second-floor window, where, by way of a frustratingly platonic relationship, they discuss all matters of life and love. Meanwhile, Dorothea is having a late mid-life crisis. She assumes at age 57 that she has the answers to life’s big questions, but needs help to steer her son right. To do this she calls a meeting to ask the ad hoc ‘household’ for help. She’s an attractive, intelligent professional woman whose veneer of self-confidence glosses plenty of inner confusion. Music, sex, language, dating, and romance – they just ain’t what they used to be.  CONTINUE READING