FROMTOP:^DAN^ MCFADDEN/SUNDANCEINSTITUTE;^ KATIE^
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“V
ARIETY”/SHUTTE
RSTOCK92 | Rolling Stone | March 2020
PETER TRAVERS
PORTRAITS OF WOMEN ON FIRE
In telling the story of feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem, Julie
Taymor leads a fierce wave of take-charge women directors
Gloria Steinem, an advocate
for women’s rights since the
1960s. Taymor has cast four
actresses as Gloria: Ryan Kiera
Armstrong plays her as a child;
Lulu Wilson as a teen; Alicia
Vikander in her twenties and
thirties; and Julianne Moore
from her forties to the present.
They all do her proud.
Oscar winners Vikander
(The Danish Girl) and Moore
(Still Alice) bring humor and
gravitas to their roles in a way
that makes sure that Gloria’s
personal story isn’t lost in the
sweep of history.
There’s her career
in journalism, her
going undercover
as a Playboy bunny
to expose sexist
working conditions
in Hugh Hefner’s
empire, her
co-founding of Ms
Magazine in 1972,
and her partnership
with New York Rep.
Bella Abzug (a dyna-
mite Bette Midler)to create the National Wom-
en’s Political Caucus. These
Glorias never stop, moving on
to the 2017 Womens’ March
on Washington. For Steinem,
now 85, these ideals are even
more urgent when battles pre-
viously won for gender parity,
reproductive rights, and the
end of sexual harassment
are being fought again in the
repressive Trump era.
In adapting Steinem’s
2016 memoir, My Life on the
Road, to the screen, Taymor
and screenwriter Sarah Ruhlnever resort to sermonizing.
The director is a visionary —
see her brilliant stage version
of The Lion King, and her
dazzling if divisive film forays
into Shakespeare (Titus, The
Tempest) and Beatlemania
(Across the Universe). Her
visual tangents aren’t for ev-
eryone. On a Greyhound “bus
out of time,” all four Glorias
join together to discuss their
agenda. Jarring?
Maybe. But these
scenes are also es-
sential. Shot in black
and white by the
great Rodrigo Prieto
(The Irishman), the
more fantastical
moments empha-
size Steinem’s role
as a part of a female
collective in which
the individual only
triumphs as part of
a surging whole.The Glorias
STARRING Julianne Moore,
Alicia Vikander, Bette
Midler, Janelle Monáe,
Lorraine Toussaint,
Lulu Wilson,
Ryan Kiera Armstrong,
Timothy Hutton
DIRECTED BY Julie Taymor
4H
AVING BEEN famously
shut out by the sexist
Oscars this year,
women directors are again
making their presence felt.
You can find their artistry
on display at the multiplex,
on streaming services, and
at film festivals such as
Sundance 2020, where nearly
half of the competition films
were directed by women.
Look hard at The Glorias,
which premiered at the film
fest: a riveting rambling of
a road movie from director
Julie Taymor that encompass-
es the turbulent life and times
of feminist groundbreaker
The biographical details of
Steinem’s life are sketched in
as Gloria grows up in Toledo,
Ohio, as the daughter of a
rootless traveling-salesman
father, Leo (Timothy Hutton),
and a journalist mother, Ruth
(Enid Graham), who was
forced to write under a male
pseudonym and suffered
bouts of depression.
Taymor is out to capture
Steinem in the exhilarating
act of inventing herself as
part of a revolution. And
the movie reminds you that
it wasn’t just white women
on the front lines, either —
it’s also such multicultural
reformers as Dorothy Pitman
Hughes ( Janelle Monáe),
Flo Kennedy (Lorraine
Toussaint), Dolores Huer-
ta (Monica Sanchez), and
Wilma Mankiller (Kimberly
Guerrero as the first woman
elected principal chief of the
Cherokee Nation). Taymor’s
tendency to rush ahead when
we want to stay and go deep-
er are minor flaws in the face
of the exultation that comes
from watching these women
in action. When Steinem
herself appears onscreen,
it’s hard not to cheer. She’s
built an army of Glorias, men
included, with no intention
ever of calling it quits.+++++Classic | ++++Excellent | +++Good | ++Fair | +PoorTaymor with
the real
SteinemMoore,
as Steinem,
leads a
protest.