The Glorias, a new film based on feminist activist Gloria Steinem’s 2015 memoir, My Life on the Road, will be released on streaming service Amazon Prime Video on Sept. 30, according to Deadline. It stars Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander as Steinem at different ages, and was directed by Across the Universe’s Julie Taymor, who adapted the memoir with playwright and author Sarah Ruhl.
The movie, which was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January, had originally been scheduled to appear in theaters on Sept. 25. The film’s distributors changed their strategy in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has caused theaters across the country to shut down.
Moore and Vikander’s co-stars include Bette Midler as U.S. Rep. Bella Abzug and Janelle Monaé as activist Dorothy Pitman Hughes. Lulu Wilson, who appeared in the 2018 Netflix miniseries adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s 1959 horror classic, The Haunting of Hill House, portrays Steinem as a teenager.
My Life on the Road tells the story of Steinem’s life, beginning in her childhood with a “restlessly migratory” father, as Kirkus’ review puts it. She later became famous as a political activist and a leading spokesperson for feminist causes, including the Equal Rights Amendment; she also co-founded Ms. magazine in 1971 with Hughes. Kirkus’ reviewer called the memoir “illuminating and inspiring,” noting that it “presents a distinguished woman’s exhilarating vision of what it means to live with openness, honesty, and a willingness to grow beyond the apparent confinement of seemingly irreconcilable polarities.”
Steinem was the subject of a 2011 HBO documentary, Gloria: In Her Own Words, and was portrayed by actor Rose Byrne in the Hulu miniseries Mrs. America, which premiered in April.
David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.
