(Saoirse
Ronan)
Lady
Bird flies high and handsome with Greta Gerwig
becoming only the second woman to be nominated for an Oscar in the best
director category. (Review by Patrick Compton 9/10)
Greta Gerwig has delivered an almost
perfect love letter to her younger self. This delightful movie, her directorial
debut, is a funny, moving and wise coming-of-age drama set in her home town of
Sacramento. In some ways it’s the female equivalent of Richard Linklater’s
Boyhood.
Gerwig will be a familiar figure to some,
albeit on the other end of the camera. The tall blonde has appeared in some of
her partner Noah Baumbach’s independent comedies, notably Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha
(2012) and Mistress America (2015).
She has also made waves in various supporting roles in movies such as To Rome with Love (2012), Jackie (2016) and 20th Century Women (2016).
The concept of a coming-of-age teenage high
school comedy-drama is hardly new, and many of the characteristic boxes of that
genre are ticked in this film. But the remarkable quality of the script – every
line rings true – the sensitive direction and the magnificent performances by
Saoirse (pronounced Sur-sha) Ronan as the rebellious “Lady Bird” of the movie’s
title and Laurie Metcalf as her passionate, controlling mother take the film
into completely new territory.
Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson is a spiky
teen at a Catholic girls’ school in downbeat Sacramento. The family is pressed
for money, dad has depression issues and Lady Bird is determined to escape her
home town and go to a liberal arts university on the sophisticated East Coast,
preferably in New York.
Her mother, a doctor, is intensely
irritated by her seemingly ungrateful daughter, not least her desire to
self-identify by not responding to her given name. The opening scene in her
mother’s car beautifully sets the scene for what develops into a complex,
nuanced, loving and antagonistic relationship.
Lady Bird’s various relationships at school
are memorably mapped out. There’s Julie, who has weight issues, first boyfriend
Danny (Lucas Hedges) and first lover Kyle (Timothée Chalamet). Through all of
these Lady Bird emerges as a passionate, enquiring, hot-tempered, vulnerable
and not always admirable young woman.
But it is her adversarial relationship with
her mother that lies at the heart of the movie and gives it its depth. In this
regard, the final sequence between the two women is deeply moving; most
parents, I am sure, will recognise it, or something very like it, in their own
lives.
Lady
Bird is showing at Gateway Mall – Patrick Compton
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