20th Century Women
118'
USA
IFFR 2017
“Why does everything have to be about slavery and poverty”, sighs the writer Jean Jones, the neurotic, conceited yet ever-charming descendant of a middle-class Jamaican-American family from New York. While wrestling with expectations about her latest book, announced as “the next quintessential black experience”, her life has been side-lined. Her boyfriend has suddenly told her that he needs time and space, as a result of which she is homeless. A dinner with her eternally squabbling mother, aunts and grandma then turns into a tragedy thanks to the unexpected appearance of her grandpa, who dies in the doorway before he’s even had time to explain his arrival.
Inspired by Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters, Meghie steers her humorous and bittersweet debut skilfully along the well-trodden paths of similar family comedies, sketching an appealing portrait of five modern women, each wrestling in their own way with their ambitions, their weaknesses and the men in their lives.
IFFR 2017