No one can tell their life

Theodore 2022-04-19 09:02:33

Today is a traditional festival for women all over the world. On this special day, it is most suitable to watch this female film——Twentieth Century Woman
"Twentieth Century Woman" was nominated for this year's Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, directed by Mike Mill Si is a famous artist in New York who has filmed MV for Yoko Ono. The half-way up director has made a name for himself in 2010 with his self-written and directed "Beginner". "Twentieth Century Woman" is the first film he wrote and directed. Two works.

The American keywords in the 1970s were punk, marijuana, sexual liberation, and the beat generation. This film took place in the United States in 1976 and told the stories of three twentieth-century women born in 1924, 1955, and 1962.
The plot of this film is difficult to summarize. There are no dramatic conflicts, no major turning points, only the real life of the three women, which flows quietly with the years like poetry.

Dorothea, born in 1924, is a single mother. She has experienced World War II, the Great Depression, and the troubled times, which has created her strong and independent character. Her relationship with her 15-year-old son Jamie is the main line of the film. In the eyes of her son, she An interesting and wise mother.
The son imitated his mother's handwriting to sign the slip. Facing the angry teacher, the mother actually praised the son for imitating it! In order to keep her son from skipping classes, the mother herself made up various reasons for her son to ask for leave. (Please give me a dozen of such parents.) My
mother is also a golden sentence player, and she often spit lotus flowers to guide her son in the labyrinth.


As her son grew up, Dorothea also felt that she was drifting away from her son. She couldn't understand the hoarse punk music, the sex without love, and the young people talking about menstruation casually in front of everyone. Communicating with her son, trying to keep pace with the times, but spanning the entire twentieth century, she has to admit that she has been left behind by the times.

Born in 1955, Abby with dyed red hair is a tenant of Dorothea's house. She studied at the New York Academy of Art, loves photography, loves punk and feminist books, and always thinks about the meaning of everything around her. She is a standard. Wenqing, who suffered from uterine cancer because her mother was taking abortion drugs, chose to escape from her hometown after learning about the cause of the disease, Abby and her mother could no longer get along normally.

Abby's photography works photographing her own objects to find the subtle relationship between objects and herself.


Born in 1962, Julie was at the age of 17 and was a typical Beat Generation. She was addicted to punk, drugs, and sex, and indifference was her most common expression. , she used to say that she was self-destructive. Children of this age always think that their sadness is unique, but in fact they are just passing through a confused adolescence.

She was still a little girl in the eyes of her parent Dorothea, who secretly climbed the window with her schoolbag to play with Jamie.


The three heroines in the film contributed very wonderful performances, showing the delicate and sensitive uniqueness of women vividly.
Annette Bening, who plays Dorothea, is a three-time Oscar nominee for best actress

The young Annette Bening was a standard beauty who 


played Julie was Dakota Fanning's sister, Elle Fanning. Her acting skills were on a par with her sister.

Greta Gerwig, who starred as Abby in the controversial 'Neon Demon', has

an equally impressive performance in 'The First Lady'

This is a work with a distinct personal style, and audiences who are not used to the slow pace may not be able to adapt. This self-written and directed film incorporates the director's memories of his grandmother. Although there is no dramatic conflict, the filming process does not Will not be bored, the whole film is like a poem, soothing, soulful and delicate.
There are two scenes in the film that I really like:

one is Dorothea sitting in her brightly colored home, looking at the newspaper like a queen

The other is to fast-forward the footage of the car, with psychedelic colors, so that the audience can truly feel the flow of time.

Peeping the leopard in the tube, the director's skill can be seen in the subtleties.
At the end of the film, the son says: I finally had a baby and got married many years after her death and I will try to explain to him what kind of person his grandma was but I will never be able to tell.
In the long twentieth century, there are three women of different ages groping forward in their respective lives. They meet at one moment, see something in each other, appreciate something, understand something, and separate at the next moment.
There are no words that can sum up their life, and it will never be clear.

View more about 20th Century Women reviews

Extended Reading
  • Shyanne 2022-01-07 15:53:32

    The torrent of change blasted over you, and your shadow shook slightly. The future will be better because the times have progressed and because you are old.

  • Rosario 2022-01-07 15:53:32

    Even though she has seen big winds and waves, she does not have the answers to everything in the world, she just accepts the reality that many things have no answers; she does not want to admit that she is unhappy, she does not want to admit that she is alone, because happiness and company are good, but there is no If so, it's okay. The dialogues in a few scenes were not well written, and most of them were great. Like the classic opening special effects of A24 in the film, there is a special sense of alienation.

20th Century Women quotes

  • Dorothea: That was my husband's Ford Galaxy. We drove Jamie home from the hospital in that car.

    Jamie: My mom was forty when she had me. Everyone told her she was too old to be a mother.

    Dorothea: I put my hand through the little window, and he'd squeeze my finger, and I'd tell him life was very big... and unknown.

    Jamie: And she told me that there were animals, and sky, and cities...

    Dorothea: ...music, movies. He'd fall in love, have his own children, have passions, have meaning, have his mom and dad.

    Jamie: When they got divorced, my father moved back east and left the car with us. He calls on birthdays and Christmas. Last time I felt close to him was on my birthday in 1974. He bought me mirrored sunglasses. I saw the president fall down the stairs and I threw up on the carpet.

    Dorothea: Since then it's just been us.

  • Dorothea: Actually, it was, it was built in 1905, and the same family had it forever, but they lost all their money during the war, and then there was a fire and... You should've been here for that. Anyway, so, it was just a mess. They let it fall apart. Then a bohemian inherited it in the '60s, then a bunch of free spirits moved in, and they lost it to the bank.