20th Century Women (2016 Mike Mills & scr)

Mills made Beginners and this has some of the same visual flair, e.g. in the old photos (though there's no talking dog this time). Annette Bening is an annoying single mother who feels her son Lucas Jade Zumann isn't growing up properly balanced - the irony is that he is. His friend Elle Fanning keeps sneaking in to stay the night. Meanwhile the house is shared by two lodgers - Greta Gerwig as a nutty photographer (who turns him on to feminism) and Billy Crudup as a creative handyman.

There's some neat stuff going on in the music which regularly counterpoints old classics (Rudy Vallee's version of 'As Time Goes By', for example) against late seventies punk (recognised almost none of this). And a Voice of God type narration which knows how the future is going to pan out.

I wasn't sure about Bening's performance but she does come over as properly annoying. The kid is good. (I wish she's stop calling him 'kid'.)

Not sure, overall. Seemed a bit slow? Nevertheless, Oscar-nominated original screenplay (Manchester By the Sea won).