From 'Mary Queen of Scots' to 'Mary Poppins Returns,' this year's movies celebrated a spectrum of female strength
Strong women have seized the big screen in 2018. Finally, right?
That optimistic sentiment makes headlines year after year after year. Whenever a few female-centered films galvanize awards-season buzz or box-office numbers, it's pitched as a newfound phenomenon. It awakens new hope that Hollywood might accept, once and for all, that storytelling led by and about women can secure both critical and commercial success.
We've heard all that before, but 2018 stood out as the year that introduced a slew of stories led by female characters who embody a different definition of "strong."
"We're not holding up a banner for all of womanhood, and I certainly don't know how to do that," Karyn Kusama, director of "Destroyer" (starring Nicole Kidman), tells The Times. "It's important for men and women alike, but in this case, particularly women, to see characters who struggle with the same torments that we all do.
"I do hope there's an increasing awareness about what it does to our larger human consciousness to see interesting versions of ourselves reflected on the screen: specific, authentic, weird women who do things in their individual way,"
