Lady Bird Synopsis: A nurse works tirelessly to keep her family afloat after her husband loses his job. She also maintains a turbulent bond with a teenage daughter who is just like her: loving, strong-willed and deeply opinionated.
So, while this blog is primarily for my love of rom-coms, I’ve decided to branch out a bit and start posting some reviews for other genres on Fridays (assuming I’ve had the time that week to watch a movie and write!). I’m not getting fancy with it, but “Friday Films” will be for other movies, hopefully primarily films I’ve never seen before, but we’ll see. You can also check out my “general-movie” Letterboxd account. There’s not much there but a sentence or two, but I’ll try to get better at writing semi-decent reviews.
My first movie for “Friday Films” is Lady Bird, from 2017. I have been wanting to see this movie for a long time, but I just never found the time, or I ended up watching something else. After I went to see Little Women in December, I was so impressed with Greta Gerwig’s direction that I made a vow to grab Lady Bird from the library and sit my ass down to watch it (not realizing that it was available on Amazon Prime already but… what can you do).
Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) is a senior in high school, desperate to get into a college on the East Coast so she can escape her hometown of Sacramento, California. Lady Bird is not the kind of student who has her pick of schools. She’s average at best, but with her decent SAT scores, she still has a shot.
The problem is her mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf). Marion is quick to remind Lady Bird that they don’t have the finances to send her to a college on the East Coast. The family is already tight financially, and it’s made worse by the fact that Lady Bird’s father, Larry (Tracy Letts), has recently lost his job, prompting Marion to work double shifts as a nurse. Lady Bird is determined to find a way, but she knows doing so will only widen the divide between her and her mother.
The turbulent relationship between Lady Bird and Marion is at the film’s core. They’re constantly at odds with one another. Lady Bird can be stubborn and selfish, while Marion is unyielding and judgmental. The struggle they have to connect with each other is not due to some extreme difference in character. They’re actually more alike than either of them probably want to admit. But Marion wants to keep Lady Bird close to home, and she sees Lady Bird’s desire for distance and independence as a personal slight.
Laurie Metcalf is phenomenal in this role, and while I think Allison Janney deserved the Best Supporting Oscar, I found myself wishing Metcalf had won after I finished the movie. She gave such an emotionally nuanced performance as Marion. The exasperation she feels with her daughter, her middle-class lifestyle (she and Lady Bird enjoy spending their Sundays driving around to various open houses in neighborhoods they could never afford to live in), and the stress that comes with having to support a family is so evident in her eyes, and how she carries herself.
In one scene, she is dealing with the aftermath of her husband losing his job post-9/11, and she takes her frustrations out on Lady Bird for not tidying up her room before going out. As a mother, I’ve been there. When Marion’s stiff resolve began to break down, I crumpled a bit, too. I can’t tell you how many mother-daughter relationships like Lady Bird and Marion’s I’ve witnessed first-hand.
I could probably write a dozen more paragraphs about how much I loved this movie, so I’ll try to keep it short and to the point. Lady Bird has some of the most relatable, realistic portrayals of teenagers I’ve seen on screen. Instead of polished, fancy homes and expensive wardrobes, Gerwig gives us a real look into the lives of middle to low-income teens. And instead of abs, we get acne. Lady Bird isn’t caught up in grand romance designed to change her life. She crushes on two very different boys and experiences believable disappointment with both.
Her friendship with Julie (an enchanting Beanie Feldstein… that’s right, I said enchanting!) was just as emotional to me as her relationship with her mother. Feeling a best friend pull away is one of the most devastating things to experience when you’re a teenager. When Lady Bird finally realizes she misses Julie, Julie’s subtle, but the emotional response just broke my heart. Seriously.
While watching this movie, I never felt that “this would never happen.” Instead, I was able to watch and relate to it both as a mother and as someone who was once 16 years old, frequently desiring all the things I was never given.
Gerwig’s directorial debut is every bit as wonderful as her adaptation of Little Women. She has some amazing talent behind the camera. Both films are so appealing and confident in their presentation, and more importantly, Gerwig’s characters are fully realized, making it so easy to become attached to who they are and what will become of them. Not only has Greta Gerwig become one of my favorite directors, but I think Saoirse Ronan is climbing the ranks of actresses I could watch in just about anything.
Lady Bird is a hilarious and poignant coming-of-age story that really had me feeling so many emotions. I’m so glad I could finally watch this film, and also pretty angry that it took me this long.
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Beanie Feldstein, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Odeya Rush
