‘Glorias’ worthwhile, but Steinem deserves more
For her latest film, “The Glorias,” writer-director Julie Taymor has chosen a wholly worthwhile subject: journalist and feminist icon Gloria Steinem.
Best known for directing the beloved stage version of Disney’s “The Lion King” — and for co-designing the complex puppets that are synonymous with it — Taymor has adapted Steinem’s 2015 memoir, “My Life on the Road,” into a thoroughly informative primer on the woman born in Toledo in 1934.
No matter how strong the subject, however, making a standout biopic is very difficult. Tell a person’s tale in strictly chronological order, and the film may suffer in the story-telling department. Do something more ambitious, and the movie may suffer from any number of problems.
And while there is a lot to like in “The Glorias” — including the work of co-stars Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander, as Steinem at different points in life — “The Glorias” suffers from both approaches.
Along with co-writer Sarah Ruhl, Taymor uses four actresses to portray Steinem — the youngest Glorias being played by Lulu Wilson (“The Haunting of Hill House”) and Ryan Keira Armstrong (“It Chapter II”) — which works rather well, at least in the film’s first half. For a while, “The Glorias” rather artfully bounces among them, connecting scenes in a largely thematic manner.
However, Taymor conceived of what she calls a “bus out of time,” which is “forever traveling to the next demonstration,” as she says in the production notes. It’s a mechanism that allows the Glorias to talk to one another. Yes, there’s some insight to be gleaned here, but the construct tends to be a distraction that hurts the rhythm of the film.
Worse are a few other imaginary sequences Taymor implements to
try to inject life into the affair. They simply fail to add anything thematically that hasn’t already been wellestablished.
At the same time, Taymor falls into a chronological run in the second half of “The Glorias,” when we primarily get Moore as a middle-agedand-up, aviator-glasses-wearing Gloria. The energy that characterizes the first half, primarily featuring Vikander but also making room for the two younger actresses, largely is lacking.
Early on, we spend time with the young Glorias and their parents. Her relationship to her struggling-topay-the-bills but constantly hustling father (Timothy Hutton) is key to who she becomes.
“Travel is the best education,” the charming gentleman announces, after his wife (Enid Graham) laments that they don’t stay in one spot long enough to get Gloria and her sister into a normal schooling routine. “It’s the only education, really.”
Thus, it’s not surprising we are introduced to Vikander’s Gloria when the 20-something Gloria is traveling through India, inspired by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. She listens to women in a lower caste tell of the atrocities they’ve suffered at the hands of men.
Upon her return to the United States, Gloria sets about to become a journalist, inspired by her mother.
“Listen, here at the magazine,” an editor tells her, “we have girls that do the research and the men write.” “Why is that?” she asks.
“It’s just the w— … You’re right.
Why is that?”
She hopes to write of what she learned in India, but the writing assignments he gives her instead are not in the realm of serious journalism. Worse, her male co-workers expect her to make the coffee. (And that editor soon enough reveals himself to be a real dirtbag.)
However, at a subsequent professional stop, she writes the piece that puts her on the map, a story chronicling her time undercover as a bunny at the New York Playboy Club, showing the world how the women working there are treated by management and customers.
She goes on to pen major profile pieces for New York magazine and, after the role is taken over by Moore, helps to found feminist magazine Ms.
It’s disappointing that “The Glorias” feels increasingly sluggish as Gloria becomes an effective crusader for multiple crucial causes and isn’t lifted much by other talented actresses joining the fold as important feminists of the day, including “Antebellum” star Janelle Monae as Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Bette Midler as Bella Abzug.
Academy Award winners Vikander (“The Danish Girl”) and Moore (“Still Alice”) are quite good as two of the Glorias.
“The Glorias” simply is an up-anddown affair from Taymor, whose film-directing credits include “Frida” (2002) and “Across the Universe” (2007).
It succeeds if you go into it not knowing that much about Steinem, as it will go a long way in rectifying that. We even get a bit of the real Steinem — speaking at the 2017’s Women’s March in Washington — which is a welcome inclusion.
So if we’ve sounded overly critical of what is a movie that certainly worth seeing, it’s because, given the subject and the talent involved, there was a finer film to be made here.
Difficult as biopics can be, “The Glorias” should have been glorious.