☆☆☆☆
That we were all 17 once is a truth no 17-year-old understands, but the bitter irony is that no middle-aged person does, either.
Back then, we all told ourselves, "When I'm old, I won't be that way." Then, somehow, the experimentation and the exasperation, the hope and the excitement, the loneliness and the friendships all give way to adulthood, and then, for those who have children, the cycle repeats itself. It has been that way for all time, I guess, and probably before the famous murder Cain and Abel rolled their eyes and clucked their tongues because Adam and Eve just didn't get it.
So, the conflicts of parents and children are nothing new for movies to explore, and in that regard Lady Bird doesn't feel particularly new or profoundly insightful, but this directorial debut from actress Greta Gerwig, who also wrote it, is engaging, witty and wise nonetheless.
Played by Saoirse Ronan, Christine McPherson is cursed with the fate of being above-average -- that is, too smart to be ordinary yet not brilliant enough to be something special. She's so convinced she's bored with her life that she even gives herself her own nickname, "Lady Bird," which she writes in quotation marks between her first and last name. She's "Lady Bird" because it's a name she gave herself, not one forced upon her by her mother, the way every meaningful decision has been.
Lady Bird lives in Sacramento, and Lady Bird begins with an epigraph by Joan Didion that both mocks and respects Sacramento for being, well, Sacramento, which Lady Bird calls "the midwest of California." It doesn't seem like it's enough for Lady Bird, who envisions herself doing something big and bold but seems fated to live the kind of life where the best she can do is be cast as "swing" in the school play.
Lady Bird's mother is played by Laurie Metcalf, and she doesn't understand her daughter, not at all. She might have more time to consider her daughter if only she weren't working overtime at the hospital, worrying about her soft-in-the-heart husband (Tracy Letts) losing his job, and fretting about how she's going to keep the family afloat. The last thing she needs is teenage angst and rebellion, but that's what she's got with Lady Bird.
Lady Bird is primarily a series of vignettes that illuminate the sort of life that normally happens in the shadows of bigger things. Nothing of great import happens in Lady Bird, but one of the great achievements of the movie is the way it doesn't seem to mind. The movie follows Lady Bird for about a year as she deals with school, college applications, budding romance, friendship and a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction. She wants to be anywhere but here -- but she also has a sense that when she gets there, she might not like it very much, either.
Lady Bird is thin on plot but loaded with warm, amiable characters who are confused about the lives they're growing into. And it's not just the teenagers in the movie that are discovering this -- Metcalfe anchors the movie with her portrayal of a mother who wishes she had more time to love her daughter the way her daughter deserves to be loved.
Lady Bird is as messy and endearing as Lady Bird's so-called life, and it's at its best when it deals with her first serious attempt at a relationship, a flirty, crushy sort of high-school love with awkward, handsome Danny (Lucas Hedges). Something big, something important happens between Lady Bird and Danny, and the movie handles it with anxious humor and true grace -- a scene between Ronan and Hedges is one of the sweetest and most touching moments you'll see in a movie this year.
Lady Bird also has a terrific relationship with her best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein) that feels exactly the way high-school friendships felt: intense, genuine and painfully ephemeral.
The best parts of Lady Bird are about Lady Bird's complex relationships with her mother, Danny and Julie. The movie is less appealing when Lady Bird veers off track and strikes up some friendships with the school's rich kids, and if the movie has one big flaw it's that it spends too much time observing Lady Bird with some self-absorbed brats. Part of what Lady Bird is getting at, of course, is that Lady Bird herself will come to regret the time she wasted with the wrong kind of people. But in many ways, Lady Bird plays like Pretty In Pink with an indie vibe, and let's face it, no one has ever really wished Andie spent more time with Blane and less with Duckie, did they?
Yet, the Pretty in Pink-John Hughes comparison, though apt, really only goes so far, because Lady Bird flirts with, if never quite addresses, some interesting observations about faith (Lady Bird attends a Catholic high school), class and integrity. There are a lot of moments it's tempting to wish this small (93 minute), sweet movie would have spent more time exploring, and Gerwig's script meanders for a few critical moments. Yet, it finds its way back, and the final scene pulls it all together in a sweet and melancholy way.
Lady Bird will make anyone who used to be a teenager wish that they could go back to do things just a little bit differently. We're only 17 once, and Lady Bird knows what a blessing and a curse that is.
Viewed November 4, 2017 -- ArcLight Hollywood
2015
Back then, we all told ourselves, "When I'm old, I won't be that way." Then, somehow, the experimentation and the exasperation, the hope and the excitement, the loneliness and the friendships all give way to adulthood, and then, for those who have children, the cycle repeats itself. It has been that way for all time, I guess, and probably before the famous murder Cain and Abel rolled their eyes and clucked their tongues because Adam and Eve just didn't get it.
So, the conflicts of parents and children are nothing new for movies to explore, and in that regard Lady Bird doesn't feel particularly new or profoundly insightful, but this directorial debut from actress Greta Gerwig, who also wrote it, is engaging, witty and wise nonetheless.
Played by Saoirse Ronan, Christine McPherson is cursed with the fate of being above-average -- that is, too smart to be ordinary yet not brilliant enough to be something special. She's so convinced she's bored with her life that she even gives herself her own nickname, "Lady Bird," which she writes in quotation marks between her first and last name. She's "Lady Bird" because it's a name she gave herself, not one forced upon her by her mother, the way every meaningful decision has been.
Lady Bird lives in Sacramento, and Lady Bird begins with an epigraph by Joan Didion that both mocks and respects Sacramento for being, well, Sacramento, which Lady Bird calls "the midwest of California." It doesn't seem like it's enough for Lady Bird, who envisions herself doing something big and bold but seems fated to live the kind of life where the best she can do is be cast as "swing" in the school play.
Lady Bird's mother is played by Laurie Metcalf, and she doesn't understand her daughter, not at all. She might have more time to consider her daughter if only she weren't working overtime at the hospital, worrying about her soft-in-the-heart husband (Tracy Letts) losing his job, and fretting about how she's going to keep the family afloat. The last thing she needs is teenage angst and rebellion, but that's what she's got with Lady Bird.
Lady Bird is primarily a series of vignettes that illuminate the sort of life that normally happens in the shadows of bigger things. Nothing of great import happens in Lady Bird, but one of the great achievements of the movie is the way it doesn't seem to mind. The movie follows Lady Bird for about a year as she deals with school, college applications, budding romance, friendship and a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction. She wants to be anywhere but here -- but she also has a sense that when she gets there, she might not like it very much, either.
Lady Bird is thin on plot but loaded with warm, amiable characters who are confused about the lives they're growing into. And it's not just the teenagers in the movie that are discovering this -- Metcalfe anchors the movie with her portrayal of a mother who wishes she had more time to love her daughter the way her daughter deserves to be loved.
Lady Bird is as messy and endearing as Lady Bird's so-called life, and it's at its best when it deals with her first serious attempt at a relationship, a flirty, crushy sort of high-school love with awkward, handsome Danny (Lucas Hedges). Something big, something important happens between Lady Bird and Danny, and the movie handles it with anxious humor and true grace -- a scene between Ronan and Hedges is one of the sweetest and most touching moments you'll see in a movie this year.
Lady Bird also has a terrific relationship with her best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein) that feels exactly the way high-school friendships felt: intense, genuine and painfully ephemeral.
The best parts of Lady Bird are about Lady Bird's complex relationships with her mother, Danny and Julie. The movie is less appealing when Lady Bird veers off track and strikes up some friendships with the school's rich kids, and if the movie has one big flaw it's that it spends too much time observing Lady Bird with some self-absorbed brats. Part of what Lady Bird is getting at, of course, is that Lady Bird herself will come to regret the time she wasted with the wrong kind of people. But in many ways, Lady Bird plays like Pretty In Pink with an indie vibe, and let's face it, no one has ever really wished Andie spent more time with Blane and less with Duckie, did they?
Yet, the Pretty in Pink-John Hughes comparison, though apt, really only goes so far, because Lady Bird flirts with, if never quite addresses, some interesting observations about faith (Lady Bird attends a Catholic high school), class and integrity. There are a lot of moments it's tempting to wish this small (93 minute), sweet movie would have spent more time exploring, and Gerwig's script meanders for a few critical moments. Yet, it finds its way back, and the final scene pulls it all together in a sweet and melancholy way.
Lady Bird will make anyone who used to be a teenager wish that they could go back to do things just a little bit differently. We're only 17 once, and Lady Bird knows what a blessing and a curse that is.
Viewed November 4, 2017 -- ArcLight Hollywood
2015
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