“Lady Bird” - Film Review
The opening image of writer/director Greta Gerwig’s impressive debut, Lady Bird, is of Marion (Laurie Metcalf) and Christine (Saoirse Ronan) asleep together in a hotel bed. Their faces are close, like mirrored images of each other. Not only do they look alike, they are two sides of the same coin. It’s why they get along so well and why they can wound each other so deeply. This mother-daughter relationship is the crux of the story Lady Bird tells. The movie chronicles Lady Bird’s (as Christine insists on being called) last year of high school in Sacramento. She can’t wait to leave, and is hoping to graduate and attend an East Coast liberal arts school. She’s looking for culture, and Sacramento has probably been in her rearview mirror for as long as she’s been alive.
Lady Bird is a love story, but not the type of love story that most likely comes to mind when you hear that phrase. It is not about Lady Bird falling in love with a boy (although she does). This movie is about the love between a mother and a daughter, and how to preserve that love during the teenage years when they don’t like each other. It is also a love story between both Lady Bird and Marion and the city of Sacramento. Both of them have some resentment toward the city. For Lady Bird, it’s too far away from New York, which in her mind is the embodiment of culture. For Marion, it’s a trap she can’t escape from. She and her husband (Tracy Letts) have been struggling financially for years, and they haven’t been able to move out of the house they once thought would only be a starter home.
Gerwig has a note in her personal script about a scene where Marion is driving home from work. She writes, “When she’s not resenting the stuck-ness of her own life she has an enormous capacity to love it. Remember this moment with Marion.” Gerwig is making the case that love and attention are one and the same. It is impossible to love something without giving it attention. Both Marion and Lady Bird know the streets of Sacramento intimately, and when they let themselves be present, they are able to realize just how much they love the city.
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While the dynamic between Lady Bird and Marion may be the focus of the movie, the cast of high school characters Lady Bird surrounds herself with also plays a major role. It feels like they could have been plucked from anyone’s high school. The dreamy star theatre kid (Lucas Hedges), the angsty bad boy (Timothée Chalamet), and Lady Bird’s best friend (Beanie Feldstein). Lady Bird falls in love, figures out who makes a good friend, and tries to become a grown-up with all of these characters.
Lady Bird’s life is full of the kinds of mistakes that just about every young woman will make and remember forever. Moments like crying in the car to Dave Matthews Band songs after a break-up, the pure joy of a first kiss, the feeling that everything that happens is the end of the world when it’s really just the beginning. Gerwig’s debut is one that will always be relevant, no matter the year. Music will change, fashion will change, but the feelings that Gerwig captures will be forever.
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