Funny, Real, and Perfectly Imperfect: a Review of “Lady Bird”
Today is the one year anniversary of starting this blog! I’ve done more writing than I ever thought I would on here, and I’m really proud of that. I’ll happily be continuing this little project for the foreseeable future. Starting early January, this blog will function out of my temporary life in London, where I’ll be discussing profound self-discoveries I’ve made on the road of wanderlust less-traveled. Ha, just kidding. But I’ll be giving a lot of updates on my experience and traveling and such – I’ll try to update regularly like usual, but if you don’t hear from me every week, that’s probably a good thing! Anyway, today I wanted to write about a movie I’ve been thinking about this week, called “Lady Bird.”
Okay. I love this movie. I saw “Lady Bird” last weekend with my roommates and would definitely see it again if anyone would like to go with me for round two. It’s also the most-reviewed Rotten Tomatoes movie to ever remain at 100% Fresh, which is, like, almost impossible (I’m a movie review addict so I listen to that kind of shit. You can make of it what you will, though).
But I will try to convince you that it’s worth that 100%. The plot is a classic: rebellious teenager surrounded by mean girls, nice girls, bad boyfriends, good boyfriends, disappointed parents…her life is filled with many firsts, and she desperately wants to get out of her hometown.
However, director Greta Gerwig’s semi-autobiographical take on Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson’s suburban Sacramento life is so much more than the coming-of-age trope. It’s filled with witty and realistic dialogue, complicated and imperfect relationships, and sharp questions of whether love and “paying attention” are the same thing.
“Lady Bird” captures exactly how late teenagedom can feel–awkward, messy, melodramatic, but defining–and reminded me to not forget that. Sometimes, only three years out of high school can feel so far removed.
Aesthetically, “Lady Bird” takes place during the 2002-2003 school year (when director Greta Gerwig was also a senior in high school in Sacramento) but could just as well be happening now. Christine’s late nineties/early aughts style is coming back around, so at times I thought I was watching a super on-trend-but-in-an-ironic-way eighteen-year-old rather than a dated teenager from fifteen years ago (vintage, maybe? Am I a millennial now for saying that?). That’s not important, but I thought I’d mention it, as a lover of fashion and theater/movie costuming.
Saoirse Ronan, who plays Christine, is becoming my favorite actress. I was introduced to her as Agatha in Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014), fell in love with her as Irish romantic Eilis in “Brooklyn” (2015 Academy Award Best Picture nominee), and most importantly, related to her as Christine in “Lady Bird.” What I love especially about Christine is her relationship to everyone around her, specifically her judgmental mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf).
“How much?” Christine yells at her mother when Marion reminds her that it takes a lot of money to raise her. After all, Christine insists, she’ll make so much money some day that she can write her mother a check and never speak to her again. We laugh at her naivety but flinch because we empathize. As she struggles with many “firsts” during her fleeting last months of high school, all the while pressing her parents for money to go to school on the east coast, Christine changes before our eyes, and we grow up with her.
What is most striking about “Lady Bird”, and something I relate to the most, is the place versus people scenario. While this movie is Gerwig’s love story to early adulthood in Sacramento, and much of the dialogue/plot revolves around running away from California and running to New York (i.e. ideas, not places), it turns out that the experiences and the people are what make this whole story worthwhile. The camera angles are so tight that we barely glimpse Sacramento anyway–Christine could be growing up anywhere, for all we know. And New York is not as glamorous as she imagines.
Whether people are there or not there and how they interact with you makes all the difference. As someone who claims to love places but ends up finding the relationships I have within those places as the most revolutionary, I empathize. This makes the ending, or lack of (trying not to spoil), that much more striking.
I often think of my life in a narrative arc (hence this blog). But that tendency can become unhealthy, because life doesn’t have a plot–just a series of unexplainable, chaotic events. “Lady Bird” gives us a story that doesn’t necessary have to be grandiose, but a slice-of-life that focuses on complicated, tangled internal and interpersonal struggles rather than a hero’s journey. Someday, like Gerwig, I hope to write a tribute to my life as honest and true as “Lady Bird.”
Happy one year blogiversary to me, and see you next week!
