Mike Mills directs Annette Benning, Greta Gerwig and Elle Fanning in this amusing drama about a single mother who wants to open up her son to strong feminist influences in 1979.

A pleasant surprise this. Though Mills’ Beginners was equally smart, affecting and full of subtle visual experiments so I don’t know how this sneakily snuck up on me quite so well. A humanist meditation that celebrates everything that influences us from the people who inhabit our lives, our choice of music, the movies, books and news we pay attention to… to even medical and social advances. All modernising factors are presented as part of a relaxed but all encompassing crosssection of the last century. All within the guise of an accessible, hip domestic dramedy à la The Squid and the Whale or The Ice Storm. The calmly ambitious movie somehow spins many plates at once. Scene by scene it acts as a people’s history of feminism, a soapy coming of age and a delivery system for a completely on-point punk soundtrack all at once (whether you are an Art Fag or into Black Flag.) Gerwig and Fanning continue to impress and charm, Benning belts out a brilliant lead turn and if only it wrapped up 20 minutes early then we might have a new literate, visually vibing classic on our hands. Sadly it gets a little stuck in the mud by the last act with little to do but repeat cool images and moments, robbing them of their earlier power. If you run out of things to say then there’s nothing wrong with an elliptical fade. Punk songs last two minutes for a reason. On the whole though, this feels like an important movie for young men to experience, something that might guide the more sensitive and intelligent teenaged male in how they approach and understand the opposite sex.

7