Trailer For Mike Mills' '20th Century Women' With Annette Bening, Greta Gerwig, And Elle Fanning

The wait has been excruciating for Mike Mills' 20th Century Women, at least among those who are eager to see all of the Best Picture contenders finally revealed. Six years have gone by since Mills' breakthough film, Beginners, which took a tragi-comic look at a middle-aged man's fumbles into love and an older man's coming out as homosexual. Now Mills seems to have brought that same sensibility once again in capturing one boy's coming of age among a group of very impressionable women.

Set in 1979 Santa Barbara, right at the time of President Jimmy Carter's famous "Crisis of Confidence" speech, the film stars Annette Bening as Dorothea Fields, a single mother who recruits a little help in raising her adolescent son (newcomer Lucas Jade Zumann). That help consists of a spirited punk photographer (Greta Gerwig) and a provocative young neighbor (Elle Fanning) who impart on him different life lessons during the culturally tumultuous era. Billy Crudup and Alia Shawkat co-star.

Just as Beginners was obviously very personal to Mills, the same goes for 20th Century Women which he has called "an ode to the women who raised me". Bold words. New York Film Festival will host the world premiere next month, followed by a theatrical release on Christmas Day.