Does a youthful male need a father figure to deal with life in 1970’s Americana? With “20th Century Women,” acclaimed filmmaker Mike Mills brings us a multilayered, funny, heart-stirring celebration of the complexities of women, family, time, and the connections we search for our whole lives. Set in Santa Barbara, the film follows Dorothea Fields (Annette Bening), a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women in Jamie’s upbringing, via Abbie (Greta Gerwig), a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields’ home, and Julie (Elle Fanning), a savvy and provocative teenage neighbor. 20th Century Women is written and directed by Mike Mills, and is rated R for sexual material, language, some nudity and brief drug use.

Mike Mills latest picture is certainly an intimate and revealing look into the adolescence of one parent kids everywhere that rings very close to home for Mills himself. Growing up in a home where his Mother was also the father, 20th Century Women feels like a love letter to the women of Mills generation who stepped up and filled the noticeable gap in the post-flower power generation. One could construe this idea as feminist propaganda, and while there’s certainly nothing wrong with that stance professionally, that isn’t exactly what I would classify this movie as. Being a gifted screenwriter for projects like 2005’s Thumbsucker and 2010’s Beginners, means that Mills can articulately envelope both sides of the gender coin when it comes to parenting a challenging youth. Ultimately, there’s plenty of misdirection and education for both sides to learn, as neither side ever feels truly right or definitive. Parenting is a lot like envisioning your life’s future, you can think it will go one way, but the backlash in opposites that the road takes is one that constantly keeps a man and a woman guessing.

There’s not a lot of long-term plot to the movie. Mostly it’s in dealing with the ever-changing situations of these five characters who sort of become a family of socially inept misfits, but come together in the common goal of raising this fatherless boy. Despite this flaw in long-term building creatively, Mills does something very unique with his storytelling, in that his characters narrate not only through the generations that are being discussed orally, but also in the past, present and futures of each of his charming cast. This might not sound like anything revolutionary, but the way he reveals key details about the future midway through the movie would normally puzzle or cloud a film’s current progression, but not here. Instead, Mills pulling back of the curtain at various points throughout the movie adds more of a sense of urgency and empathy for the characters whose decisions before us are constantly shaping the adults that they grow up to be. In narrating through world events, it helps us as an audience understand the decisions (like our cast) that our political figures have made to produce the 70’s environment that we see so fruitfully in this movie. This gave me a strong respect for Mills as a writer because to understand what’s going on inside of this household, you must also understand what is going on around it. A rare commodity among exposition in 2017 cinema.

Not to be outdone by his typewriter however, Mills artistically dazzles in more ways than one that add a true beauty to experimental tapestries in expression. Some of the transitional scenes have a fast-forwarded motion detection to them to signify how fast the world outside is moving. It’s never distracting nor void of documentation for what is transpiring during the effect, but rather feels like pushing FF 1 on your DVD remote. Just fast enough to notice it, but not quick enough to do damage to the very idea of its existence. Car scenes also omit a beautiful radiance of technicolor splash that shadows the very movements of the car. While I can’t exactly say why Mills decided to add this effect, I can say that it screams the 70’s in all of its trippy and tye-dye delight. The wide angle scenic displays are also very fresh and full of a California suburbia that extend as far as the eye can see. Props to Mills for also editing in archive footage that brings out the best in every decade that is brought up for discussion. This movie has a very editorial feel to its visual presentation, so it’s a positive to reap something more in showing us rather than just telling us. 20th Century Women may be an early 2017 favorite in glossy cinematography that constantly keeps raising the bar throughout a music video sheek that highlighted the production of this film.

The performances have garnered some national attention, with Benning and Gerwig receiving Golden Globe nominations for their respective performances, and after seeing this movie, it’s easy to see that these nominations could be inter-changeable with the refreshing trio of Zumann, Fanning and even Billy Crudup as an aging hipster who rents a room in the house. Benning is fantastic. Shouldn’t be anything new to anyone who knows her, but I felt a sincere empathy for her character and the inevitability of eventually handing her son over to society one day. It’s clear that this is a woman who is clutching for anything solid to hold onto in her life, even so far as neglecting her own romantic offerings. Benning warms her way into our hearts with an unorthodox style of parenting sure to relate to the modernist in the audience. Gerwig’s transformation into this gritty, raging young adult is one that made her unrecognizable to this critic. Greta has been stealing the show in one indie comedy after another, but it’s in 20th Century Women where her performance offers a refreshing side of angst that Gerwig has bottled up thus far in her career. Crudup too delivers wonderfully as the soft spoken William. In the role, Billy’s character feels like the last stand of solid men from a past era that time is slowly forgetting. He’s adaptable to this new world, even if it doesn’t always need his opinion. The chemistry between Crudup and Benning explodes off of the screen, and for a brief moment we question if they are the missing piece to the other’s life.

20th Century Women is an immersive and stylishly sleek presentation that cements Mills among the great artistic expressionist directors of the early 21st century. It’s another side to the revolution that helped many Mothers make the next step forward in holding down the reigns of a household through several profoundly humorous obstacles. Time moves fast, but it’s the people in our lives who helped shape us to be the people we become who are the most memorable, and Mills personal touch never stumbles over its immense responsibilities.

8/10