dir. and written by Greta Gerwig
Teenagers can be terrible. Last year's The Edge of Seventeen understood that, and mined it for a lot of pathos and humour, presenting a character who's just beginning to see the world outside of her own mind. Greta Gerwig's directorial debut, Lady Bird, plays on many of the same themes, but imbues them with even more detail and specificity, with a more ambitious lead character and a much wider thematic range. It's just as funny, and boasts both more pathos and more irresolution, and by a wide margin it manages to eclipse last year's already wonderful entry in the genre.
But that's not to say that this is an iteration on already-explored themes. Here, Gerwig shows potential to be just as accomplished a writer and director as she is an actress, with a nuanced script which boasts loads of specificity, strongly developed characters, and powerful insight into the relationships between parents and their children. Specificity has a way of revealing universals, and as much as Lady Bird works simply as an uproarious teen comedy, the way it ends isn't with a big laugh but with one final note of soulful contemplation. This is a wonderful movie.
Christine, or as she likes to be known "Lady Bird" (Saoirse Ronan), is a narcissistic teenager from Sacramento, California who dreams of a future beyond her means. She struggles academically at her Catholic high school, and yet she actively pursues admission to a modestly prestigious west-coast college. In the meantime, she falls in and out with boyfriends and cliques, clashes with her parents, and experiments with theatre. The film is largely episodic, with a handful of running plotlines largely anchored around the protagonist's journey of self-discovery, and of course all of these plotlines are delightful.
When we're first introduced to Lady Bird, she's obnoxious. She exudes a sense of smugness while at the same time neglecting her studies and showing frequent disdain for others. But her form of rebellion never becomes grating, and this partially comes from the film's great sense of humour, seen from early on when she reacts to her mom's nagging by literally jumping out of the moving car. She's headstrong but witty, and her attitude remains entertaining even while she remains unsympathetic. More importantly, this behaviour is tempered by other characters, such as her much nicer best friend Julie (newcomer Beanie Feldstein) and her equally spirited mother Marion (Laurie McPherson).
In some ways, Lady Bird's narrative trajectory is fairly conventional. There's a clear character arc by which Lady Bird becomes a better person, and over time the tone takes a familiar shift from lightweight and punchy to something more soulful and introspective. But there's also an authenticity to everything here, largely because several of the beats are highly specific as to avoid predictability. Lady Bird moves from a nice, geeky boyfriend (Danny, played by Lucas Hedges) to a cooler but douchier one (Kyle, played by Timothee Chalamet), but she never comes back around again, and both characters are at least rooted in authentic detail if not outwardly unconventional.
Among Lady Bird's greater strengths is its tight hour-and-a-half running time, which deserves part of the credit for its buoyant pace. More credit, however, should be given to the excellent script, filled both with resonant truths about topics such as sex, identity, and friendship, as well as great jokes, snappy dialogue, and carefully-sketched character relationships. The dialogue is the least warmly naturalistic of its qualities, but it flows easily through otherwise truthful scenes, punctuating them with sharp wit and solid comedic scenarios which are always rooted in genuine experience. Relationships like Lady Bird's with Julie have familiar elements, but are so well-observed as to transcend their formula trappings.
Even more important than Lady Bird's relationships with her friends and lovers, however, is that with her parents. She has a few siblings who are always funny, but they're overshadowed by Marion and her husband Larry (Tracy Letts). Larry is the softer of the two, always keeping a kindly demeanour but hiding troubles of his own, which Lady Bird only has partial knowledge of. Meanwhile, she's constantly clashing with Marion, whose tough attitude is constantly grounded in genuine concern for her daughter. Lady Bird wants out of Sacramento, and while she both knows it's barely within her family's means and how hard it must be for her parents, the pull of new things is irresistible.
This core relationship increasingly takes over the film's emotional core, and while everything else is rich and intelligently observed, it's Lady Bird's fundamental need to set herself apart from her parents which is most significant, and her dawning ability to appreciate their support which is most resonant. Like any teenager, Lady Bird takes the support while ignoring or outright rejecting nearly anything else, and that serves as a microcosm of how she perceives Sacramento, her old friendships, and her recent commitments. Her emotional journey runs counter to her actual accomplishments: the closer she gets to actually leaving the town, the more she realizes how it - and everyone in it- means to her.
It's that which hits home most in Lady Bird. The film nails the narcissism which can come with adolescence, but also the emotions which come when that narcissistic world finally opens up. It's a warm, very funny teen movie with strong characters, nuanced relationships, and a warm visual style, but it's also a film about a transition. Not every movie can capture the emotions of moving from one world to the next as well as this one does, and if the humour and characters are what make Lady Bird work, it's that ability to tap into the emotional changes of late adolescence which make it something special.
9/10
+ Authentic yet hilarious script
+ Very specific, and refreshing as a result
+ Filled with resonant universalities
+ Lovely visual storytelling
+ Genuinely moving portrait of adolescence in change
- Broad strokes are fairly conventional
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