Why We March: The Story of Three 20th Century Women

20th Century Women, a film which chronicles the lives of three women and a teenage boy growing up in Southern California in the changing political climate of the 1970s, has been garnering buzz since its debut at the New York Film Festival in October. However, its release in theaters this January has cemented its spot as an Oscar season favorite. In the film, Dorothea (Annette Bening) is the aging single mother of the young teenage Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann); when she finds herself drifting apart from her son, Dorothea decides to enlist the help of two women, Abbie (Greta Gerwig) and Julie (Elle Fanning), to help raise Jamie. But make no mistake: 20th Century Women is no simple coming-of-age story. True, director Mike Mills crafts an honest, powerful film about growing up—but he emphasizes that this growth does not begin and end during adolescence.