The film is about a young girl named Christine (who goes by "Lady Bird", played by the brilliant Saoirse Ronan) who lives in Sacramento but dreams of life on the east coast. She daydreams about liberal arts colleges and complains to her friends about how miserable their city is (Sacramento is like the midwest of California). It's surely the best "teen" movie I've seen since The Edge of Seventeen, which was the best since 2007's Juno. Do we need to classify these stories under such a genre? It's so limiting. Yes, the high school comedy is something we know inside and out - and yet this is a movie that is elevated so much higher. It's a deeply personal story that almost transcends any genre. It's a slice of life.
Much of Lady Bird's senior year is spent exploring her relationship with boys. She participates in the theater production of Merrily We Roll Along (where her awkward friend Julie gets a better part). There she meets Danny (last year's Oscar nominee Lucas Hedges), a bright redhead from an Irish Catholic family. Lady Bird writes his name in the space just under her windowsill. She daydreams about making out with him, and through her assertiveness she makes it happen. We learn early on how fiery this young girl is in a remarkably well-written scene with her mother. You saw it in the trailer, I'm sure. Lady Bird and her mom (Laurie Metcalf, who is flawless) are listening to "The Grapes of Wrath" on tape, crying in the silence and beauty of the words. It's a calm, reflective moment - bookended with the scene's conclusion in which Lady Bird jumps out of a moving car. Look at how they get from point A to point B and tell me Greta Gerwig isn't a talented writer. Later in the film Lady Bird falls for a different boy named Kyle (Timothee Chalamet) who is paranoid about government tracking and is a quiet romantic who reads poetry by himself at loud house parties. It's quite funny.
What makes this film so special is that is a story told by Gerwig who herself has had the opportunity to reflect back on her childhood. We can see her so clearly in Ronan's character (and if you've seen any of Greta Gerwig's performances we can understand the type of person she is). There is a sense of regret, longing, even enlightenment here. Lady Bird so eagerly wants to go to an expensive school, but at the same time her father (Tracy Letts, again brilliant here) has been laid off, and her mom is barely making a living as a nurse. At first we can sympathize with her parents, both hearty people who only want what's best for their children. By the end of the film we see Lady Bird's transformation: that she can understand everything her parents have done for her as well. It's a beautiful evolution that is captured in small moments here and there...
Greta Gerwig herself has said that this film is not as autobiographical as it appears (though she was raised in Sacramento), but what I was struck by is how insightful her story is into growing up in general. I think a lot of us could project ourselves onto Lady Bird. She goes to a Catholic high school, she goofs off with her friend, she yells at her parents, and then when she finally moves away she has a chance to think about all that she really had to begin with. There are two incredibly emotional moments in the film that are all the more effective for how they are set up. One shows Lady Bird being driven to prom and making a calm realization while listening to Dave Matthews Band, and the other is when Lady Bird leaves a message on her parent's answering machine. They're both moments of clarity for Lady Bird, they're quiet, and they hit me so hard that I will be the first to admit I became emotional.
This is a movie that demonstrates so many people at the top of their game. Certainly Greta Gerwig is going to skyrocket as one of the industry's most insightful writer/directors. Saoirse Ronan is destined for her third Oscar nomination. Laurie Metcalf as the mother finds all the right notes and her final scene is a heartbreaking moment of silence in her car. Where the movie could have gone flat, it became that much more special. I know there are more accomplished movies that will come out with more polish and greater star power. I guarantee that in a year from now, this is something I will still remember as vividly.
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