In a perfect world, Annette Bening would be celebrated for her age and experience. If you put The Grifters and 20th Century Women side-by-side you see a remarkable transformation, both in terms of how she looks and what she brings to the screen. At 58 years old, Bening is doing her best as an actress, finding new dimensions to explore, new depths to plumb. But such things really only have value to people who value them. To so many in Hollywood, because most studio films are not only male-driven but adolescent male-driven, the fine qualities Bening has in abundance have perhaps become less important to mainstream films. On the other hand, in independent films, Bening’s career is thriving.
Bening has always been an actress who takes a big bite out of the roles she plays and has always stood out from the crowd. In collecting clips and surveying the span her work, what becomes apparent is that — like so many actresses we know — she was too good for an industry that did not make room for her. Bening seems to hail from the era when studios were built around female icons like Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, and Bette Davis. But she since came along a few decades too late, Bening’s talent has always surpassed the roles she received – which were typically the wife or the girlfriend, before becoming about the mother. Such is the fate for women who want to keep working, unless there is an inventive filmmaker who comes up with better stories for them. Those are stories that are out there, but there’s not enough of them to go around.
Now that her kids are almost grown and Bening has more time to explore her options, we can see she’s better than she’s ever been. Her most recent performance in 20th Century Women is a rich example. The film is a love letter to the women who shaped writer-director Mike Mills’ life as a lad. Those women include the unattainable “best friend” who he wanted as his girlfriend and the quirky older sister type who taught him how to say “menstruation” out loud and dance like no one was watching. But for better or worse, there are few women as important in a boy’s life as his mother. For most, one way or another, a man’s mother looms large — either cherished as the key to his success, or else blamed for his failures in life. Sometimes a little of both. Thus, the character Mills has written retains layers of mystery and ambivalence. She was his mother, so he tried to understand her, but try as he might he never did fully understand her, not completely. Because when you’re young, it’s mostly impossible to fathom why adults do what they do. You’ll never know, for instance, why Mom is quietly sobbing in her room with the door shut. You won’t know because she won’t tell you because she knows you won’t understand. So she shields you from her grown-up troubles. Although for sons in tune with their mothers, when an unknown burden like this is lifted its replaced by a burden of equal weight, the weight of wondering and never knowing.
From that complex cue, Bening took to the role ferociously. Well-versed in theater and drawing on a lifetime of study of what it means to be a mother, Mills has confirmed that she became the character he conjured from his memory. The combination of Mills’ writing and Bening’s interpretation is indeed ephemeral magic. She often seems like she’s halfway through a sentence and doesn’t really know where the sentence is going to go until at last it comes out of her mouth. Thoughts occur to her spontaneously and she acts on them impulsively. She is unpredictable and rather closed off, even to her son.
All of the actresses in 20th Century Women perform brilliantly, but what makes Bening stand out is that there is simply no other actor like her. No one else could have brought that far-off lingering ache for what might have been, mixed with the champagne sizzle of Bening’s laugh in the face of what turns out to be. It is such a breathtaking thing, that laugh. I could see how a young son who was always worried about his mother, as this boy in this film clearly is, would feel so relieved by her laugh that he would try to find ways to make it happen. I’m almost certain Mills must have felt one of his primary goals growing up was to make his mother laugh. The way Bening laughs, I can see how that would be a top priority.
As glorious as this role may be, what we talk about when we talk about winning Oscars is that there is no real formula for it. People vote for whom they like. We can attempt to predict based on the usual factors we rely on. We look for roles in Best Picture nominees, honors from the critics awards, or legends whose moment has finally come. It’s their time and that’s that. A win for Bening would mean that Academy members are ready at last to reward this unique, dedicated actor who has not just paid her dues but has faithfully devoted her life to the art and craft of acting.
You should see 20th Century Women for a lot of reasons. It’s really funny, for one thing. It’s also an emotionally rich experience all around. The best reason to see it is for Bening, whose imagination as an actor has not yet reached its limit.
Here is our Bening reel.
We plan to feature various actors, directors, and writers with tributes throughout Oscar season. This is the first of that series.
