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20th Century Women
In 1979 Santa Barbara, California, Dorothea Fields is a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie, at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women – Abbie, a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields' home and Julie, a savvy and provocative teenage neighbour – to help with Jamie's upbringing.
2016 · Directed by Mike Mills · 119 min · Drama · Screenplay in the scene database · 19 frames
Plot
In 1979, 15-year-old Jamie Fields lives in Santa Barbara with his 55-year-old single mother, Dorothea, and their two tenants: Abbie Porter, a 24-year-old photographer being treated for cervical cancer, and William, a carpenter and mechanic. Jamie's best friend is 17-year-old Julie Hamlin.
Concerned she is having trouble connecting with her son, Dorothea asks Abbie and Julie to help raise him, but Jamie responds to this by going to a rock concert in Los Angeles with some friends. When he returns, Julie tells him she had unprotected sex. Jamie accompanies Abbie to a doctor's appointment, where she learns she is cancer-free but will likely be unable to have children, and he reads a magazine article about home pregnancy tests. He buys one for Julie and helps her take it. It comes back negative. To thank Jamie for his support, Abbie makes him a mixtape, and she begins to confide in him, telling him she moved back home from New York after her cancer diagnosis, but her mother could not handle that the cancer was caused by her use of DES, a fertility drug, while Abbie was in utero, so Abbie moved in with Dorothea.
One day, after seeing Julie sneak out Jamie's window, Dorothea talks with her, and they discuss why Dorothea has had no real relationships since Jamie's father left years earlier. Dorothea asks Abbie to show her "the modern world", so they go to a punk club, where William kisses Dorothea. Aware that he has a sexual relationship with Abbie, Dorothea does not return his advance. Abbie gets in a fight and William tells her he no longer wants to sleep with her. Abbie goes to talk to Jamie and, finding him in bed with Julie, says Julie is disempowering Jamie and advises them both to leave Santa Barbara.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Mike Mills
- Cinematography: Sean Porter
- Edited by: Leslie Jones
- Music: Roger Neill
- Production design: Chris Jones
- Produced by: Anne Carey, Megan Ellison, Youree Henley
Cast
- Annette Bening as Dorothea
- Elle Fanning as Julie
- Greta Gerwig as Abbie
- Billy Crudup as William
- Lucas Jade Zumann as Jamie
- Alison Elliott as Julie's Mother
- Thea Gill as Abbie's Mother
- Vitaly Andrew LeBeau as Young Jamie
- Olivia Hone as Julie's Sister
- Waleed Zuaiter as Charlie
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Annapurna Pictures, Archer Gray, Modern People
- Budget: $7,000,000
- Box office: $5,664,764
- Themes: parent child relationship, 1970s, balcony, feminism, punk rock, coming of age, feminist, free spirit, single mother, generation gap
More by Mike Mills
On this film
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