20th Century Women (2017)Movies

Despite being set in the late 1970s, “20th Century Women” feels like the perfect movie for this moment.

Writer/director Mike Mills sets one montage to Jimmy Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” speech, in which the president reflects on “the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.” I mean, come on.

But Mills is generally working in more universal themes, his alternating-character narration often phrased as if explaining humanity to an alien: This is an elephant. This is dancing. As in his previous film, “Beginners,” he is tackling the question of how to be a decent person,...