'The Glorias' Preview: Renowned feminist Gloria Steinem meets her past and future in biopic by Julie Taymor
When 'The Glorias' first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2020, it met with immense praise. Based on the book 'My Life on the Road' by Gloria Steinem, the biopic narrates Steinem's journey as a journalist, writer and a prominent face of second-wave feminism who reformed the world by giving birth to ideas that have grown and evolved up until this day.
Directed and produced by Julie Taymor, from a screenplay by Taymor and Sarah Ruhl, 'The Glorias' boasts of a big multi-star cast including Julianne Moore, Alicia Vikander, Lulu Wilson and Ryan Kiera Armstrong, who all portray Steinem at different stages of her life. Sure Steinem changed the world's view but not without the help of other women. 'The Glorias' also stars iconic actress paying the roles of iconic women - Bette Midler stars as Bella Abzug, Janelle Monáe as Dorothy Pitman Hughes, Timothy Hutton as Leo Steinem, Lorraine Toussaint as Florynce Kennedy, Enid Graham as Ruth, Kimberly Guerrero as Wilma Mankiller, Monica Sanchez as Dolores Huerta and Margo Moorer as Barbara Jordan.
According to the Sundance website, Taymor (who is known for her work on the 2002 Academy Award winner 'Frida' and even better known for her 'Across the Universe') "brings her signature inventiveness and audacity to craft a complex tapestry of one of the most iconic and legendary figures of modern history, based on Steinem's own memoir".
In an interview, Taymor had given ahead of the movie's Sundance release, she explains how she didn't want 'The Glorias' to utilize the same narrative tools that other biopics are prone to use. Instead, she makes the use of a Greyhound (that is not a part of the film's events) to merge all of Glorias' different timeliness - all four actors playing Steinem at pivotal points in her life, meet to contemplate their past and the future together. "For me, the key to the movie is what I call the bus out of time connect in a conversation about moments of inner conflicts and self-recriminations," Taymor says, adding that 'The Glorias' is "Not a tidy three-act drama. It's a road picture."
In the same interview, Steinem discusses the movie. "It's an unusual film in that it wasn't one specific relationship or thematic point in time. In a sense, it's really about a movement, and what that means to us as an enlarged family, as well as our own family. I wanted that to come across." So what makes a biopic on Steinem worth indulging in today? To begin with, many of the issues that Steinem fought to bring to attention to those of policymakers and the general public - sexual harassment at the workplace, gender equity, the minimizing of race in conversations about sexism, and reproductive rights of women - are all more than relevant points today. In fact, each of them is war women fight every single day. 'The Glorias' is not only going to offer a story about a world-renowned feminist but it will also be, in a way, telling a story of women's struggles everywhere.
'The Glorias' is set to release on Wednesday, September 30, on digital and streaming on Amazon Prime Video.