Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut, Lady Bird, has been attracting
all kinds of praise, accolades and hype.
At one point on Rotten Tomatoes, it broke Toy Story 2’s record
for the most “fresh” reviews ever.
It had one of the best indie box office openings of the year and took home top Golden Globes.
A.O. Scott of The New York Times called the film “perfect.”
So what is all the hype about?
What’s so great about Lady Bird?
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Now back to Lady Bird.
First a quick look at the story.
Fiercely independent teen Christine McPherson has christened herself “Lady Bird.”
"That's your given name?"
"Yeah."
"Why is it in quotes?"
"I gave it to myself.
It's given to me, by me."
She itches to escape Sacramento and her all-girls Catholic school
for a place where she can be more herself.
"I want to go where culture is, like New York."
"How in the world did I raise such a snob?"
"Or at least Connecticut, or New Hampshire, where writers live in the woods."
"You couldn't get into those schools anyway."
We watch her battle with her mother, test out different friends and boyfriends,
go to prom and try to figure out who she is.
"One pack of Camel Lights.
A scratcher.
And a Playgirl."
"ID?"
"It's my birthday today."
One of the most powerful things about this film is its thesis --
that love is really attention.
When reading Lady Bird’s college essay, the principal of her school compliments
how clearly Lady Bird’s love for Sacramento comes through in her attention to detail.
She only realizes how much she does love her hometown after she leaves.
Everything else we see in this story is also informed by
this poignant observation that love is a form of attention,
which isn’t always easy or pleasant.
Lady Bird’s mother Marion pays nonstop attention to her,
and it can feel overbearing, judgmental, or burdensome --
but it is how she loves her daughter.
When Lady Bird ditches her best friend Julie for a rich, popular girl
who can help her get close to a new crush,
the betrayal is again about attention.
If we take our attention away from someone, we are essentially taking our love away.
So more than anything -- in both its form and its content, its style and its story --
Lady Bird’s message is to value what surrounds you, to truly sweat the details of your life.
The film itself is the result of great attention paid by its writer-director, Gerwig.
It’s a period piece of sorts -- the “period” being the not-so-distant year of 2002.
To capture this sense of recent cultural history, Gerwig and her DP Sam Levy
aimed to give the film the visual quality of a memory.
It was shot on digital, but they worked to emulate the look of Xerox copies
and early 2000s yearbook photos --
images not overtly nostalgic, but that feel at a remove.
Inspired by Sacramento’s rivers, they incorporated blues into the color palette,
and the blues are paired with pastels to recall paintings of everyday objects
by Northern California’s Wayne Thiebaud.
And then there are the “period” details in the costumes and soundtrack
to remind viewers of the early 2000s at every turn --
from the secondhand Doc Marten Mary Janes and puka shell necklaces,
to key events in the Iraq war playing out on the TV,
to Lady Bird’s defiant admission that she does really like
Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash Into Me,”
no matter how uncool the song may have been.
"Crash...into me."
Lady Bird is a classic coming-of-age tale, capturing the universality of the teen experience
and its sometimes comedic obstacles.
"I just wanted it to be special."
"Why?
You're going to have so much un-special sex in your life."
"[Screams]"
Think Stand by Me, Dazed and Confused, Mean Girls, Superbad or Moonlight.
Yet Lady Bird avoids clichés in a well-trodden territory
by giving us really specific characters and moments,
like the football coach trying to direct the school play.
And it finds its originality by changing something key
in the structure of the coming of age tale.
We watch the story unfold from two sides --
from the perspective of the teen and from the perspective of a parent learning to let
go.
"If you're tired we can sit down."
"I'm not tired."
"You were dragging your feet."
"You're so infuriating."
"Please stop yelling ."
"I'm not yelling."
"Oh, it's perfect!"
"Honey, do you love it?"
The result is a mother-daughter love story between Lady Bird and Marion.
What’s most compelling about this pair is how antagonistic
their relationship might look from the outside,
yet how bonded and attentive they are to each other.
"Does mom hate me?"
"You both have such strong personalities."
Their relationship is what Gerwig is saying love looks like:
it’s not very pretty or perfect, but it perseveres.
Gerwig has said that Lady Bird is not autobiographical,
but she sets the story in familiar territory.
She grew up in suburban Sacramento, attended Catholic high school,
and moved to New York City.
One of her major inspirations in writing about Sacramento
was the writing of Northern Californian Joan Didion,
specifically, the 2003 essay collection “Where I Was From.”
Gerwig describes her discovery of Didion’s work as “spiritually seismic...
as shattering as if I’d grown up in Dublin and suddenly read James Joyce.”
Gerwig’s gift to the place that formed her is this intimate portrait of
“the Midwest of California,” as Lady Bird calls Sacramento.
"When I started writing the movie with the intention to make something about
what home means and what family means
and how it doesn't really come into focus until you're leaving.
Sacramento is where I grew up, so I felt like it had not been given its proper due in cinema."
Finally, much of the story’s greatness comes down to the character of Lady Bird herself.
She’s larger-than-life in her brave self-assurance and determination to be herself,
whoever that is.
She’s kind of a badass.
"...and not expect everybody to do every -- ah!"
Lady Bird represents how a lot of misfits or confused teens might have felt in high
school,
even if we didn’t all act on our impulses in the way she does.
And she reassures us that everything will turn out alright in the end.
Along with its many gifts, Lady Bird may resonate with viewers even more
due to the context of its release.
It comes at a time when women are openly challenging the kinds of male stories
that typically dominate the screen.
And in this politically contentious era,
it’s refreshing for so many people to agree on the quality of a film
that’s not only written, directed by and starring a woman,
but also about a female character like Lady Bird who forges her own path
and makes mistakes along the way.
Lady Bird’s positive impact will live on -- sending a message to young women
that it’s okay to not have everything figured out --
even after you become an adult.
"Yeah, well, you know your mom's tits?
They're totally fake!"
"She made one bad decision at 19!"
"Two bad decisions!"
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