Movie Reaction: Lady Bird

Formula: The Edge of Seventeen + (Mistress America / Frances Ha)

There are few more reliable archetypes for me than a high school coming of age story. I fall in love with a movie of that ilk nearly every year. Last year, The Edge of Seventeen was one of the most unshakable movies I saw. The year before that, Me & Earl & The Dying Girl hit me like a sledgehammer. Back in 2013, I remember The Way Way Back single-handedly put me in a great mood. I'm a sucker for the genre even though the films rarely have something new to say. It's almost always some mix of feeling alone and rejected, discovering the person who you are going to be, and realizing the world is a lot bigger than you. The quality of the movie is almost all in the strength of the performances and specificity of the writing. That, just happens to be Lady Bird's two greatest strengths.

Lady Bird tells the story of Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson's (Saoirse Ronan) senior year of high school in Sacramento. She wants desperately to get out of that city, which she looks at as a drag, and move to the east coast for college. Part of this is because of her overbearing mother (Laurie Metcalfe) who she constantly feuds with. The rest of the time, Lady Bird (she opts to go by that self-appointed nickname over her birth name in an act of benign defiance) goes through all the typical high school things. She has crushes, tries to hang with the cool clique, and joins the drama club. She has an extra-layer of awkwardness to contend with, because she goes to a  rich private Catholic school despite not being Catholic and coming from a markedly not rich family, which she tries to conceal from her classmates.

The cast is large and deep with talent, from Tracy Letts as Lady Bird's recently unemployed father, to Lucas Hedges as a theater boy Lady Bird falls for, to Beanie Feldstein as Lady Bird's put upon best friend, but there's a reason why I specifically pointed out Ronan and Metcalfe in the last paragraph: they make the movie. I'd like to say things like "Ronan is a revelation" or "Metcalfe is giving a carer-defining performance", but let's remember that Ronan is a 23 year old with two Oscar nominations already and Metcalfe is an Emmy powerhouse with 10 nominations including 3 wins. Instead, I'll say that it should be no surprise that they are awesome. They move impressively between bickering and getting along, sometimes in an instant. There's love in that relationship, but they also know exactly how to press each other's buttons. It's all very natural and very believable. If both of them aren't in the Oscar discussion in the coming months, then something is very wrong.

If I didn't mention Greta Gerwig, I'd be a fool. She wrote and directed this film and it's a very strong debut. I was kind of shocked that she didn't even appear in a small role. Her presence was felt regardless. I've heard people suggest that the movie is semi-autobiographical. I can believe that, but Ronan isn't just playing a young[er] Greta Gerwig. I can see some Gerwig in the Lady Bird character, but Ronan brings enough to the role to make it her own. I love Gerwig's script because it feels very lived in. There's a lot going on in the movie around Lady Bird's story. Sometimes, the side-story is told in only a couple scenes or moments, but that's all the audience needs. Something like Lady Bird's brother being adopted isn't explained until it naturally comes up, and even then, it's only touched on. I feel like if I asked Gerwig for more information about any of these peripheral stories, she'd have a thorough answer, and I like when a script feels that thought out. You know, the iceberg approach to storytelling.

Lady Bird is a familiar movie. I've probably seen every beat covered in another movie before. Lady Bird and the lead from The Edge of Seventeen are certainly cut from the same cloth. I really enjoyed it though. It has a script that knows when to take itself seriously and when to laugh at it. The film creates a distinct time and place. The great performances do the rest of the work. My only reservation is that Gerwig does such a good job behind the camera that I might not see her in front of it as often. Wasn't losing Ron Howard and Fred Savage enough?

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend