{"id":6497,"date":"2017-04-06T07:28:59","date_gmt":"2017-04-06T11:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6497"},"modified":"2017-04-21T07:54:08","modified_gmt":"2017-04-21T11:54:08","slug":"20th-century-women-the-sense-of-an-ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6497","title":{"rendered":"20th Century Women & The Sense of an Ending"},"content":{"rendered":"

20th Century Women<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"20th

Zumann, Gerwig, Bening, Fanning, l to r<\/p><\/div>\n

Pity the poor teenage boy Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) in this film written and directed by Mike Mills and set in Santa Barbara in the late 1970s (trailer<\/a>). He not only has a protective, chain-smoking single mother, Dorothea (played by Annette Bening), but she recruits his girl friend, one word, not two (Elle Fanning) and her boarder (Greta Gerwig) to help look out for him, to teach him \u201chow to be a good man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three moms could be a bit much, and is, but he is graceful under pressure, even when Gerwig inducts him into feminist thinking with Our Bodies, Our Selves<\/em>. The resident handyman (Billy Crudup) could be a decent masculine role model, but he and Jamie just don\u2019t connect.<\/p>\n

The movie has a lot of cultural references to the 70s that may make you laugh or shake your head. A group of Dorothea\u2019s friends sit around to listen to Jimmy Carter\u2019s preachy bummer of a speech about the \u201ccrisis of confidence\u201d among Americans and the need to get past rampant consumerism. This impolitic speech was reviled at the time (one of the characters says, \u201cHe is so f—–\u201d)\u2014and now sounds distressingly prescient.<\/p>\n

The acting is A+, and \u201cWhat is so special about Dorothea (and every character in the film) is that they aren’t \u2018quirky\u2019 in an annoying, independent film way,\u201d says Sheila O\u2019Malley<\/a> for Rogerebert.com. They\u2019re real people.<\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> Critics Rating: 88%; audiences: 75%.<\/p>\n

The Sense of an Ending<\/span> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Sense

Rampling, Broadbent<\/p><\/div>\n

Scriptwriter Nick Payne transformed Julian Barnes\u2019s prize-winning novel into this movie (trailer<\/a>) directed by Ritesh Batra about a self-absorbed Londoner and his growing obsession with a woman from his distant past. It appears he\u2019d much rather be living there, with the frisson of youth and the sixties\u2014than in his current divorced, not especially accomplished, late-middle-age state.<\/p>\n

Tony Webster (played superbly by James Broadbent) becomes a voyeuristic observer of the life that might have been. He receives an unexpected letter from his former girlfriend\u2019s mother telling him she\u2019s bequeathed him the diary of his youthful best friend\u2014the best friend who stole the girlfriend from him.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an odd thing, but he becomes determined to get that diary, while the ex-girlfriend (Charlotte Rampling) is determined he not have it. The conflict sparks many nostalgic reminiscences about those days. It transpires that events were shatteringly different from how he has understood them all along.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, his ex-wife (Harriet Walter, who is in everything lately) is onto him, and his daughter (Michelle Dockery, Downton Abbey<\/em>\u2019s Lady Mary) is about to yank him back into the present by producing a grandchild.<\/p>\n

Again, the cast is terrific, even if Webster himself is annoyingly oblivious, and the source material is strong. I have not read the book, but apparently Julian Barnes told the filmmakers<\/a> not to be constrained by his text: \u201cThrow the book against the wall,\u201d he said. The critics seem to think they followed that advice rather too well.<\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> Critics Rating: 70%; audiences: 59%.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

20th Century Women Pity the poor teenage boy Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) in this film written and directed by Mike Mills and set in Santa Barbara in the late 1970s (trailer). He not only has a protective, chain-smoking single mother, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[366,57,394,104],"tags":[939,940,936,941,532,937,935,933,333,47,938,942,934,932],"class_list":["post-6497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drama","category-movies","category-romance","category-the-morgue","tag-20th-century-women","tag-annette-bening","tag-charlotte-rampling","tag-elle-fannin","tag-greta-gerwig","tag-harriet-walter","tag-jim-broadbent","tag-julian-barnes","tag-london","tag-memory","tag-michelle-dockery","tag-mike-mills","tag-ritesh-batra","tag-the-sense-of-an-ending"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1GN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6497"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6502,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497\/revisions\/6502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}