Kirsten Johnson’s documentary is a staged fantasy/farce about her father, who is in the early stages of memory loss after Alzheimer’s painfully took her mother a few years back. The film was censored often during its initial release, but plays unabridged in a new restoration as part of the Brattle Theatre’s Virtual Screening Room. Bigger’s violent tendencies are hard to get around, but his roots as the son of a man willfully lynched in the South underscores the effects of systematic racism. The film, directed by Pierre Chenal, while radical, lacks nuance, and oddly yet intriguingly edges into noir territory late in the game. That protagonist, Bigger Thomas, lives in the slums of Chicago – described in voiceover as “a prison without bars” – but lands a job as a chauffeur with a wealthy white family whose liberal waxing about elevating people of color echoes a bit of our 02138 in 2020. Richard Wright stars as the protagonist in this cinematic adaptation of his own envelope-pushing 1940 novel about a black man who accidentally kills a white woman and tries to cover it up. But overall it’s a bland biopic that parboils down the legend. Along the way, The Glorias partner with powerful women of color (Janelle Monáe as Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Lorraine Toussaint as Flo Kennedy), and there’s some neat cinematic flourishes added by director Julie Taymor (“Frida,” “Across the Universe”). Vikander, so good in Alex Garland’s “Ex Machina” (2014), gets journalist Steinem’s gig as a Playboy bunny. Moore (“Don Jon,” “Magnolia”) gets Steinem’s biggest moments, including the 1977 National Women’s Conference and the first issue of Ms. The loving rewind of feminist icon Gloria Steinem’s long career and notoriety is told in four iterations of Steinem – “The Glorias,” if you will – from child (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), teen (Lulu Wilson), young woman (Alicia Vikander) and middle-aged woman (Julianne Moore).
This is what it’s all about.A total meandering mess of a movie with killer talent and admirable intent, but even these gifts can’t push it over the top.
And when things settle down one afternoon and you have all three snuggled up next to you on the couch or you’re watching all three splashing around the tub, playing like they’ve never known life without each other, it’ll hit you. The girls will never stop amazing you as they grow into big and bigger sister roles. There is so much joy! A warm little body to fall asleep in your lap, milky breath, tiny little fingers to wrap around your pinky. Let me tell you, there are great things ahead! Yes, it gets crazier, there is more laundry, more juggling. I’d heard the warnings from friends about the chaos that ensues with three little ones. I’d considered myself a “boy mom” until that ultrasound and was equally terrified and excited about the new adventure I was about to embark on. I just had a little girl after two boys this past February. You have just made my weekend better and prompted me to cuddle my girlies a little more ? Take care and I so look forward to reading your posts. I look forward to hearing more of your pregnancy journey and of his birth story and name to come. It is beyond words to me how beautiful it is and what a joyful moment you have captured that you will be able to relive for so many years to come and share with your son and daughters.
Your video was so moving and had me feeling so emotional in a good way. I am so happy for you and your family during this amazing time of pregnancy and that you will be blessed with a precious new baby to love and have the joy of raising both girls and a boy. Thank you for giving the gift of telling your story to so many people and being so open with all your ups and downs. I am learning a lot from you as I parent my 4 young girls. Your writing and photography talent and general outlook on live is inspiring. I have been so hooked on your blog and your writing, your family’s story and the way you are telling it. I have been reading your blog for a little while now and came upon it after reading about Nella’s birth story from Momastery.