This Changes Everything

Name: This Changes Everything
Genre: Documentary
Released: August 9, 2019
Duration: 96 min
Rating: 63
Cast: Amy Brenneman, Brit Marling, Cate Blanchett, Chloë Grace Moretz, Gabrielle Carteris

2019

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Generally favorable reviews based on 8 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 11 Ratings

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7.2	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 11 Ratings

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Movie Details & Credits

Good Deed Entertainment | Release Date: August 9, 2019 | Not Rated

Starring: Amy Brenneman, Brit Marling, Cate Blanchett, Chloë Grace Moretz, Gabrielle Carteris, Geena Davis, Gillian Anderson, Jackie Cruz, Jessica Chastain, Marisa Tomei, Mary-Louise Parker, Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, Rashida Jones, Reese Witherspoon, Rosario Dawson, Rose McGowan, Sharon Stone, Taraji P. Henson, Zoe Saldana

Summary: Told first-hand by some of Hollywood’s leading voices behind and in front of the camera, This Changes Everything is a feature-length documentary that uncovers what is beneath one of the most confounding dilemmas in the entertainment industry—the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women. It takes an incisive look at the history,Told first-hand by some of Hollywood’s leading voices behind and in front of the camera, This Changes Everything is a feature-length documentary that uncovers what is beneath one of the most confounding dilemmas in the entertainment industry—the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women. It takes an incisive look at the history, empirical evidence, and systemic forces that foster gender discrimination and thus reinforce disparity in our culture. Most importantly, the film seeks pathways and solutions from within and outside the industry, and around the world.… Expand

Director: Tom Donahue

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 96 min

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Critic Reviews

Aisha Harris

Aug 8, 2019

Once it finally begins to focus on the mission, however, This Changes Everything not only becomes engrossing but reveals itself as a crucial cri de coeur. Read full review

Movie Nation Roger Moore

Jul 25, 2019

Donahue’s film goes down the rabbit hole on a few subjects, which cause the film to drift a bit, almost to the point of mission creep. It tends to lean most heavily on the directing ranks, even though actresses are the vast bulk of its eyewitnesses. Read full review

Anne T. Donahur

Aug 28, 2019

Ultimately, This Changes Everything is a mainline to the first-hand experience of those who work and exist outside the white male umbrella. And because of that, it’s an exercise in storytelling that evolves quickly into a valuable lesson for anyone who purports to be a feminist, an ally or a film and television lover. You’ll never watch either the same way again. Read full review

RogerEbert.com Christy Lemire

Jul 22, 2019

The documentary This Changes Everything synthesizes all that data along with interviews from a truly mind-boggling array of A-listers both in front of and behind the camera to create a damning portrait of Hollywood’s systematic sexism and discrimination. In between, we see clips from both movies and television that illustrate the film’s points in amusing and often striking ways. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

Aug 8, 2019

Perhaps inevitably because it is dealing with a big issue, This Changes Everything suffers a bit from being all over the map, touching so many bases that, though each is important, they don’t all cohere into a whole. Read full review

Leslie Felperin

Jul 23, 2019

There are some tonal problems here, particularly around the way the film tends to homogenize very disparate views and opinions into one sweet, easily digestible polemical smoothie. Read full review

Candice Frederick

Aug 7, 2019

This Changes Everything may not actually change anything (especially considering that it, too, is directed by a man), but there’s hope that it will at least galvanize more allies, so that there will be more of them in Hollywood than not. That’s a start. Read full review

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User Reviews

fcueto

Aug 25, 2021

An eye opening documentary that uncovers how conscious and unconscious bias from the power group has taken over an industry for a very long time. Happy to see the efforts to make a meaningful, positive change in the past years.

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thaoanhluu

Sep 15, 2021

How many films which have a story about females did you watch? Is it enough to count it on your ten fingers? I think they are enough for me. I have watched some movies for a long time ago such as Hunger Games, Maleficient, Moana, and Raya and The Last Dragon. The latest film that I watchedHow many films which have a story about females did you watch? Is it enough to count it on your ten fingers? I think they are enough for me. I have watched some movies for a long time ago such as Hunger Games, Maleficient, Moana, and Raya and The Last Dragon. The latest film that I watched is This Changes Everything. From the title of the film, we could guess a little bit about the content of the film. It may be an action to make something different that never happens. This Changes Everything is a documentary film that uncovers one of the most confounding dilemmas in the film industry, especially gender inequality in Hollywood. The film was produced by Donahue, many featuring interviews with Geena Davis, Natalie Portman, Reese Witherspoon, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Maria Giese. The film premiered at DOC NYC in November 2015 and was released theatrically by Gathr in 2016. It won the 2019 feature-length documentary award. Gender discrimination was the argument in the film and also existed for many decades. If no one has action, gender discrimination has never disappeared. This Changes Everything is meaningful action.

This Changes Everything has one hour thirty-five minutes in length. It has three strongest logical arguments: we need more diversity on the screen, more stories from women, and more female directors. The audience could see them in the first half of the film. In the second half, they collected the research and the evidence to fight for gender equality. Do they win the case when they send the document to the court?

Some scenes in the film really touched my heart. First, Chloe, who is an actress, talked about her character when she was in the period. I could see her face showed disappointment because her male crew didn’t really know what happen to support her. I believe any woman could feel like her and empathize with her. Second, Maria is a director but she didn’t have many opportunities to do her passion like her colleague, male director. When she sat next to her daughter, she said that she won’t let what happened to her will happen to her daughter. She said with a firm tone of voice. At that moment, I could feel any mother who always loves their children unconditionally even they face difficult issues.

The director told first-hand by some of Hollywood’s leading voices behind and in front of the camera with different angles. After someone was talking, the data and some short scenes of the movie related to would follow. I was convinced by the evidence. He also did a great job to have featuring interviews with different races women as White, Black, and Asian. However, This Changes Everything missed the element of the intersectionality of race. Although they had some voices in the film are black women. However, they just talked about gender inequality. They didn’t mention the race issues that could happen to a black.

Finally, most of the voices in the film are women. They talked about gender inequality in Hollywood. They tried to do everything to increase women’s presence: female writers, female actresses, and female directors. However, the director of the film is male. I believe this is the missing element that harms the credibility of the film.

Overall, the film, This Changes Everything, is great. It reached out to the gender inequality in Hollywood. We need to take action. We want to have more films about females is produced. Each film will be a voice to get equality in gender. Female is 50% of occupying the world, so they deserve to have more presence not only in the entertainment industry but also in any industries. … Expand

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naaatalieg

Sep 14, 2021

When we watch movies such as Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Mean Girls, and Smurfs, we are not aware of the subtle gender discrimination that goes on. That being said, This Changes Everything, by Tom Donahue debuted in 2019 to discuss the issue of gender discrimination in theWhen we watch movies such as Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Mean Girls, and Smurfs, we are not aware of the subtle gender discrimination that goes on. That being said, This Changes Everything, by Tom Donahue debuted in 2019 to discuss the issue of gender discrimination in the entertainment industry. This film dives into this issue by bringing in different actresses and directors personal experiences in this industry. In addition, history and statistics are mentioned in order to tackle the issue of the overall portrayal of women on screen and the lack of women and opportunities for them behind the scenes. The film begins by discussing the issue of how women are portrayed in the media. It was stated that “of the top grossing films of 2018, 85% of writers were males (Donahue, 2019).” That being said, most movies and T.V. shows portray women through the eyes of a man. This then leads the film to shift towards personal experiences from many famous actresses such as Reese Witherspoon, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Taraji P. Henson. By incorporating these stories, Donahue does a great job highlighting how difficult it was for these actresses and directors to feel comfortable in their work space. The film then goes on and discusses the misrepresentation of women in a variety of ways, touching on how there is a lack of ethnic backgrounds in women characters, sexualization of women and how women are bound to certain characteristics and roles in movies and T.V. shows. The statistics that were mentioned in this portion of the film was shocking. It would be hard to argue with the statistics that Geena Davis had discovered. This is especially true when she had mentioned that “out of the 1010 top grossing g rated movies from 1990-2005, 72% of all speaking roles were male (Donahue, 2019).” It really makes you wonder what we are teaching our children and the generations to come. Another strong point this film was able to integrate was the male perspective, specifically that of the fox chairman, John Landgraf. When Landgraf appears on screen, the audience is able to see an example of how change can happen when one begins to realize the extent of the issue. Landgraf also serves as an example to other male figures in this industry. He is used to help inspire other men to step in and help women have a voice and fight this battle. In all, the film did a very good job incorporating a variety of actresses' opinions and personal experiences, along with statistics that are big and clear on the screen. However, the film lacks intersectionality, thus resulting in a less persuasive argument. Intersectionality is a term that was created by Kimberle Crenshaw in order to explain how there are a variety of categories that play a role in a discrimination, therefore, bringing up the point that discrimination is not rooted from one place. Although the film includes actresses such as Taraji P. Henson, Sandra Oh and Amandla Stenberg, most of the actresses and directors were white. Therefore, Donahue had failed to include testimonies from those with different backgrounds. In addition, the film does not include those with disabilities, those of different sexual backgrounds, those of different age groups and those who have different appearances. Let alone, it does not even include statistics about how these different backgrounds play a role in gender discrimination. Without the inclusion of these individuals, the argument that is being made seems one-sided. Therefore, those in the audience that cannot relate would question whether or not this topic is worth getting involved in. If the film had incorporated an intersectional lens, they would have been able to instill a deep sense of inclusion and be able to tackle the issue of gender discrimination at all angles. It would also elicit greater emotions and improve the directors use of pathos because the film would be more relatable to those in the audience that are not white, skinny or even heterosexual. If this film wants to inspire people to break the gender discrimination in the entertainment industry, it must first touch the heart of all. Works Cited
This Changes Everything. Dir Tom Donahue. 2019. Netflix. Web. 8 September 2021.… Expand

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