Director: Greta Gerwig
Date: 2018
Actors/ Characters: Saoirse Ronan/ Lady Bird McPherson, Laurie Metcalf/ Marion McPherson, Tracy Letts/ Larry McPherson, Lucas Hedge/ Danny O'Neill, Timothée Chalamet/ Kyle Scheible, Beanie Feldstein/ Julie Steffans
Summary: In 2002, an artistically inclined seventeen-year-old girl comes of age in Sacramento, California.
Lady Bird is Greta Gerwig's debut feature film and it absolutely blew me away when I went to see it in the cinema. As an aspiring filmmaker and as a woman Gerwig has created a beautiful piece of cinema and has proved once and for all that female filmmakers are just as qualified and able to produce credible films. Gerwig is an excellent director and definitely understands what is required in her craft and how to tell a story effectively. The tone of Lady Bird works perfectly and I think Gerwig may be one of the few directors in Hollywood today that can blend drama and comedy without having a fallout of tonal issues. For a film with such a seemingly basic premise, Gerwig creates a piece of art that encapsulates what it's like to be young and wild and presents it to the audience like revealing pages in a scrapbook.
Lady Bird is essentially a microcosm of growing up and 'finding yourself' focussing on our central character, Christine the self appointed Lady Bird. The fast paced nature of the film allows the audience to see a huge chunk of Lady Bird's final year of high school in short snapshots and allows us to gain an overall understanding of the year as a whole.
The film covers several important themes and issues which is another reason why I think the film resonated so much with me. The representation of gender is interesting because it flips a lot of representative norms on there head, Danny is Lady Bird's first boyfriend but he is a closeted gay and the scene in which in he breaks down crying to Christine is one of the most powerful sequences in the film. I like the depiction of masculinity in Lady Bird's father who has struggled with depression for years, this subverts the traditional illustration of the strong fatherly figure in the household. As Lady Bird is a coming of age story there are the expected themes of exploring sexuality within the film and I really enjoyed seeing the difference from Lady Bird's first more romantic relationship to her second far more sexually driven relationship. Similarly the film explores Lady Bird's friendships and reflects what it's like to be young and trying to figure out who you are through the people you chose to have in your life.
I think the standout relationship in this film is the bond between Lady Bird and her mother; these two characters are at the heart of the film. The connection between Lady Bird and her mother is one of the most unique and seemingly real mother/ daughter relationships I have ever seen on screen. Every scene that the two share is wonderfully charged with an emotion and energy that I adore.