The Glorias (2020)

The Glorias is special because it refuses the tidy, cradle-to-podium biopic formula and instead turns Gloria Steinem’s life into a living conversation across time—restless, curious, and always in motion. Julie Taymor’s bold, theatrical imagination gives the film a dreamlike, collage-like vibe, while Julianne Moore, Alicia Vikander, and Lulu Wilson each bring a different shade of Steinem’s voice so it feels less like impersonation and more like a soul seen from multiple angles. It’s sincere and expansive without turning its subject into a saint, letting the exhilaration of activism sit alongside the weariness, the compromises, and the personal costs of being perpetually on the road. If you prefer straightforward storytelling, its unconventional structure may feel more like a poem than a plot, but if you’re open to something ambitious, it’s an engrossing, big-hearted portrait of how a movement—and a person—gets made.

The Glorias is clearly aiming for a bold, nontraditional portrait of Gloria Steinem—more a collage of ideas, eras, and identities than a straight biopic—and Julie Taymor’s stylized choices do give it some striking moments. The problem is it’s so sprawling and episodic that the emotional through-line can feel thin, making parts of the film oddly distant despite the importance of the subject. At nearly two hours, the pacing can drag as it hops from milestone to milestone without always earning the weight it wants each scene to carry. If you want a focused, character-deep drama with momentum, this may frustrate you; if you’re open to an impressionistic, message-forward tribute with strong performances and occasional visual flair, it’s worth a look.