The Glorias

Four actresses play Gloria Steinem in The Glorias, although its title could just as easily pertain to the generations of women who have been empowered by her influence.

While it glosses over some key details in her personal life, this powerful biopic of the feminist icon captures the spirit of its subject while spotlighting the ongoing urgency of her cause.

Jumping between various stages of her life, the film mostly opens with her working-class upbringing showing how her troubled mother (Enid Graham) instilled a love for writing while her eccentric salesman father (Timothy Hutton) passed along life lessons in his own way. “Traveling is the best education,” he explains between fledgling get-rich schemes.

From there, we see Gloria (Alicia Vikander) as a journalist encountering sexism and struggling to break through the glass ceiling at various publications during the 1960s. That galvanized her activism, despite a fear of public speaking.

In her forties, Gloria (Julianne Moore) becomes a household name as a controversial driving force in pro-choice circles and in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. She shrugs off inquiries about marriage and children. While co-founding Ms. magazine, she joins forces a diverse group of fellow activists including Flo Kennedy (Lorraine Toussaint), Wilma Mankiller (Kimberly Guerrero), and Bella Abzug (Bette Midler).

As Gloria eventually finds her voice, so does the film as an ambitious tribute to her life and legacy. The Glorias might lack Steinem’s courage but it remains stylish and consistently compelling.

Directed with visual flair by Julie Taymor (Across the Universe), the film conveys Steinem’s fearlessness in confronting cultural and sociopolitical norms going back decades before #MeToo.

Likewise, it shows how she became a persistent forward-thinker unafraid to challenge the status quo, smartly intertwining the women’s rights movement with parallel initiatives for racial and sexual equality.

Disjointed and episodic by nature, some of the abrupt transitions feel awkward and prevent the unwieldy film from establishing a narrative rhythm. Telling the story in snippets tends to blunt the cumulative emotional impact, and some of the artsy detours seem heavy-handed.

However, the richly textured script, adapted from Steinem’s 2015 autobiography, doesn’t sacrifice character depth by covering so much biographical ground.

The final hour particularly exposes her insecurities and whether Steinem regrets sacrificing normalcy for her life’s work. In that sense, The Glorias layers its contemporary relevance with a sense of catharsis — for her and for us.

Rated R, 147 minutes.