Fall Movies We Wanna See: “The Glorias”

This looks promising…it’s a new film from Julie Taymor probably best known for her stage work directing and creating the huge musical hit Disney’s The Lion King for Broadway (and the notorious bomb Spiderman musical) but she also makes very interesting films including Titus, Frida and Across The Universe.

The new film is called The Glorias and it’s based on the autobiography from noted feminist/journalist Gloria Steinem and features four different actresses playing Gloria at various ages including Academy Award winners Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander. The film also features Bette Midler as feminist politician Bella Abzug and Janelle Monáe as Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a feminist and Black activist who co-founded Ms magazine with Steinem. The film will cover some of the same ground as the recent Hulu series, Mrs. America which featured Rose Byrne as Steinem and Margo Martindale as Abzug.

More from the press release:

Journalist, fighter, and feminist Gloria Steinem is an indelible icon known for her world-shaping activism, guidance of the revolutionary women’s movement, and writing that has impacted generations. In this nontraditional biopic, Julie Taymor crafts a complex tapestry of one of the most inspirational and legendary figures of modern history, based on Steinem’s own biographical book ‘My Life on the Road.’ THE GLORIAS (Julianne Moore, Alicia Vikander, Lulu Wilson, Ryan Keira Armstrong) traces Steinem’s influential journey to prominence—from her time in India as a young woman, to the founding of Ms. magazine in New York, to her role in the rise of the women’s rights movement in the 1960s, to the historic 1977 National Women’s Conference and beyond.

THE GLORIAS includes a number of iconic women who made profound contributions to the women’s movement, including Dorothy Pitman Hughes (Janelle Monáe), Flo Kennedy (Lorraine Toussaint), Bella Abzug (Bette Midler), Dolores Huerta (Monica Sanchez) and Wilma Mankiller (Kimberly Guerrero).

Taymor gives us her singular take on that rare genre- the Female Road Picture, one in which the female leads do not die in the end, and where the “narrative” is not driven by romance or a bad marriage, or unrequited love or, for that matter, men. Gloria’s road story is about her “Meetings With Remarkable Women”. And that is a love story in itself.

The Glorias will drop on September 30th EXCLUSIVELY on Amazon Prime.