20th century women - an inquisitive film

A film directed by Mike Mills starring Annette Benning. This was a curious production. It is part bohemian and part progressive. The story line follows this single mother played by Benning raising her son in Santa Barbara, CA in the mid seventies.

This was a time of experimentation and exploring the liberal limits. CA has always been a magnet for unusual experiments. The family lives in a dilapidated structure with good bones and the mom rents out rooms to an eclectic collection of people including a guy who knows how to fix things. He is part time recruited into fixing the house itself.

Billy Crudup plays the renter. He adds to the entire cacophony of the story line which weaves between people trying to grow up to some trying to break free of being grown up. It is about finding oneself and getting lost.

It is about discovery and remorse. It is about chain smoking (Benning's character has a fire between her fingers more time on screen than not) and cancer. It is about sex and above all a witty comedy filled narrative.

I think it is a worthwhile watch except like in Hindi films the story could have been wrapped up sooner - about 20 min sooner.

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