I remember 1979, and I suspect that contributes mightily to my affection for 20th Century Women, written and directed by Mike Mills. I don’t mean to suggest that the film is some bland exercise in nudging nostalgia, resonating only because of echoes generated by its hollowed-out soul. This story of a young man (Jamie Fields) experiencing pivotal stretch of growing up while under the watchful eye of his mother (Annette Bening, plainly perfect) and feeling his personal shape change due the influence of a handful of other figures (including characters played by Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig, and Billy Crudup) is built on the sturdiest of foundations. Mills is clearly mining his own history, but he’s doing so as a means of grinding toward a greater truth, one that bends towards the universal because it locks in on the piercingly specific. Not everyone had their psyches spun in a circle because they dropped the needle on a Talking Heads record, but plenty had cultural touchstones that helped them to feel like a more self-actualized person. And there’s a sizable subset that knows their loving friends and family sought to understand them by muscling through the same pop artifacts, hoping for epiphanies along the way. 20th Century Women is warm, funny, and suffused with understanding. It is, I think, primarily about memory of a time instead of settling for an earnest attempt at recreation. Mills doesn’t play loose and fast with the accumulated narrative dressing — the meticulous work of all the film’s collaborators would surely stand up to the most rigorous of fact-checkers — but he fully understands that feel is even more important than, say, getting the wardrobe right. To borrow a very seventies phrasing, the film’s aura is in alignment. The spiritual surety combines with Mill’s visual inventiveness and storytelling command to craft a film that demonstrates just how much insight can be drawn from honest recollection. 20th Century Women does even more, though. It makes that succession of insights into a work that is boldly, joyously entertaining.