It is impossible to judge a film like ‘The Glorias‘ (2020) by director Julie Taymor outside its political context. I think that neither the heroine of this biopic – journalist, editor and feminist activist Gloria Steinem – nor the film’s director would enjoy an apolitical assessment, because the film, the book that inspired it, and the biography on screen are all imbued with politics. And yet ‘The Glorias‘ has many cinematic qualities, it has an interesting structure based on an original idea, it is also a well-made film from a visual point of view, which probably does not surprise those who remember that one of Julie Taymor‘s previous films it was ‘Frida‘. In addition, the film has a few surprises in store for viewers.
Director and co-writer (along with Sarah Ruhl) Julie Taymor manages to avoid the linearity and banalities that often dominate biographical films by bringing the four actresses who play Gloria Steinem in four different phases of life (childhood, adolescence, youth, maturity) in a metaphorical Greyhound bus that crosses the endless roads of America or maybe the roads of the heroine’s life. The permanent on the road state is inherited by the heroine from her father played by Timothy Hutton in an emotional composition role, of a wandering salesman, permanent combiner and eternal dreamer. I liked the idea of the bus that turns the movie into a symbolic road movie. How many of us have wondered in childhood or youth what we will achieve and what we will look like in the future? How many of us later wished not to rebuke our younger selves for the mistakes of youth or advise how to avoid them? The formula worked well in my opinion, and emphasised without moralising the various stages of the heroine’s journey, from the economically insecure childhood, through the adolescence in which she was confronted with her mother’s illness and the first encounters with racial and gender injustices and inequalities, the youth and finding the way to the journalistic profession, until the maturity with the political commitment to the gender equality movement and the founding the “Ms.” magazine. Gloria Steinem‘s life was sprinkled with questions, hesitations and mistakes, but melodrama or the use of off-screen text are avoided by the use of dialogues between the four actresses or through simple gestures of solidarity over time. However, the impression of running away from controversy could not be avoided. Some publicly questioned episodes of Gloria Steinem‘s career are skipped, while aspects of her personal life are mentioned only discreetly.
‘The Glorias‘ looks good visually as well. Docu-drama style dominates but there are also seamlessly inserted documentary sequences, as well as short fantasy inserts using music and animation, which break the rhythm and give the impression of interesting and diverse film making. The two actresses who play Gloria Steinem at an older age – Alicia Vikander and Julianne Moore – manage solid creations. Among the many supporting roles, it is worth mentioning the appearances of Bette Midler and Lorraine Toussaint in juicy and inspired interpretations of real characters from the history of the feminist movement. ‘The Glorias‘ is a feminist film that describes the biography of an engaged personality, but manages to do so in a way that avoids rhetorics. Gloria Steinem had the chance for the ideas she campaigned for to become mainstream, at least for one side of the American political class. The same thing happens with the movie. As the film’s heroine found in the magazine she founded the means of commercial expression of her ideas, director Julie Taymor transposed on the screen the memoir of the journalist and political activist into an almost mainstream film, with the participation of several well-known Hollywood stars. Let’s see how the public responds.