‘The Glorias’ shines a light on life of activist

“The Glorias” is a movie based on feminist Gloria Steinem’s autobiography “Life on the Road.” Like many a road trip, “The Glorias” takes off in some odd directions. Sometimes they seem like a good idea and work. At other times they don’t and have you scratching your head and wondering why writer/director Julie Taymor took that particular trip.

Julianne Moore plays Steinem from 40 up. Alicia Vikander does her from age 20 to 40. Lulu Wilson is early teenage Gloria and Ryan Kiera Armstrong plays Steinem as a child. This is where the head-scratching comes into play. Throughout the movie they talk to each other and explain things about their various life experiences.

Most of those conversations take place on a bus. Okay. Bus. Life on the road. Got it. However, some of those conversations work. Some don’t and make you feel like Taymor is padding her movie for length.

At 2:19, it’s a bit long and some of those conversations add very little to the movie and could have been edited out.

If the conversations between the Glorias aren’t weird enough, one interview Steinem does with a journalist turns into an angry, red tornado with a witch-like Steinem circling a poor man who asked a politically incorrect question about how pretty she is and how she dresses. There are several politically correct-emphasizing scenes like that in the film. I get the point but sometimes they are more of a distraction than an emphasis.

Other than that, Taymor’s movie is a pretty good one. She skillfully mixes actual news footage of the time with live action actresses and actors. Seeing those events again and remembering them is actually more fascinating in places than Steinem’s story.

Great performances also help Taymor’s movie. None of the actresses playing Steinem look enough like each other to pull it off. So you end up suspending disbelief. It’s worth the suspension. Vikander (“Tomb Raider,” “Ex-Machina”) and Wilson give the best Gloria performances though it is Moore who manages to look most like Steinem.

It’s really hard to play a legend much less a legend who is still alive. Vikander does it easily and dominates most of the film. She plays Steinem as rock sure of herself and relaxed about the controversial path she’s taking with her life.

Steinem’s path — she notes in her autobiography — is the only path she could have taken.

In the supporting roles, Bette Midler is an absolute hoot as New York Congresswoman, Bella Abzug. She served in the House from 1971 to 1977 and was a major player in the women’s movement. The always larger-than-life Midler gives a larger-than-life performance that perfectly fits Abzug who was — also — larger-than-life.

Also quite good are Timothy Hutton who plays Steinem’s wandering father and Enid Graham as her psychotic mother.

In some circles, Steinem is — to put it mildly — not all that popular. Depending on the audience, her politics in the 1960s and 1970s, and drive for women’s rights from reproduction to equal pay for equal work were quite controversial.

For many women, Steinem was — and still is — an idol; a woman’s woman who fearlessly fought the good fight for all women. It wasn’t easy and often wasn’t pretty but Steinem never backed down, refused to compromise and when the smoke cleared, Steinem and her allies won more often than they lost.

Whether you agree with Steinem or not, or like her or not, her impact on the planet has been much more positive than negative. We’re all better off — female and MALE — because of her fearless and often selfless fight for equality.

End of preaching.

▪ Rated R for mature themes and some language. It is streaming on Amazon and can be purchased.

▪ Rating: 4 out of 5

TRIFI Film Festival

This weekend is the Tri-Cities annual TRIFI film festival. The 12th annual festival started yesterday, continues today and ends on Saturday. The Friday schedule runs from 4:30 to 11 p.m. and Saturday goes from 3 to 9:30 p.m.

Most years I help host the event. This year I’m sitting things out. Like most events these days, COVID has impacted the festival. A decision was made several weeks ago to do the whole thing — like many others are doing their things — virtually.

The festival leaders will let you know how it all works when you purchase your ticket at trifi.org.

My favorite part of the annual event is the 72-Hour Film Challenge. Teams or individuals have 72-hours to make a movie. The writing, shooting and editing has to be completed within 72-hours. The final product cannot be more than five-minutes in length.

Also, each team or individual has to put certain events, objects or words and phrases into their project to be eligible to win.

The final four films will be shown on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m.

The creativity that goes into these movies makes them an absolute blast to watch. By itself the Saturday event is worth the price of the ticket. Almost.

The almost asterisk comes from how every year the festival features some really terrific short films and full-length features. They range from horror and fantasy to sci-fi to inspiring documentaries and this year’s number is over 130. The films come from 20 different countries.

No offense to feature-length flicks but I love the short films the best. A short means a lot has to be covered really quickly. The few I previewed this year are awesome. My favorite is a silent movie called “Moondrops.” It’s a sweet love story about a maintenance man pining over a woman who works on the bottle line of a brewery of some sort.

It has done very, very well at other festivals and is the brainchild of Yoram Ever-Hadani.

His film features some terrific camera work. So does a sci-fi short titled “Skywatch.” Two kids start switching the products of a company that delivers products via drones. It almost looks like the start of a full-length feature or a TV series.

Another interesting film is one called “The Haunted Swordsman” from writer/director Kevin McTurk. It stars Jason Scott Lee (“Mulan,” “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story”). He’s a ronin sworn to vengeance.

The story is so-so but how McTurk shoots, edits and uses special effects and animation is quite creative. Lee isn’t animated yet he moves like his character is animated. It’s a fascinating effect.

And the TRIFI festival is also always fascinating. Since — like the rest of us — you’re social distancing these days and watching way too much television, why not invest a few bucks and catch some excellent sci-fi, fantasy, horror and documentaries?

This story was originally published October 1, 2020 at 4:25 PM with the headline "‘The Glorias’ shines a light on life of activist."