Lady Bird Review

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The movie Lady Bird, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, portrays a story of a young girl about to graduate from a catholic high school in Sacramento, California, trying to navigate boyfriends, parents, and her identity. This hour and a half comedy-drama, released in early November, 2017, takes the coming of age theme of many other movies, but adds unique comedic elements and extra insanity.

The movie takes place in Sacramento, California in 2002. The main character, Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson, is a rebellious senior in a catholic high school. She is openly spiteful at most of her life, most notably her family and their poor economic status. She is constantly at odds with her mother, in particular, in every regard. The movie follows the path of her senior year as she traverses through two tumultuous relationships, the dilemma of sex and fitting in, and the looming decision of college and future. Although she was accepted into UC-Davis, her true dream has always been New York, simply to escape the mind numbing dullness of Sacramento. Lady Bird’s least dull aspect of her life is arguably her relationship with her mother. One moment they love each other, the next they’re at each other’s throats. As Lady Bird’s time at home comes to a close, their relationship eventually decays until nothing is left. Lady Bird and her mother don’t have much time to learn to love each other before it’s too late.

This movie has a very strong comedic opening and an even stronger ending. Everything in between was superb as well, incorporating not-so-subtle comedy into great dialogue, acting, and relationships. The director (and writer) clearly wanted to illustrate a rocky mother-daughter relationship in order to convey the final take away. This was done slowly but surely throughout the movie, while other plot points as Lady Bird’s boyfriends and high school turmoils whittled down back to her mother. Throughout, my opinion on the movie was that it was pretty dull, apart from the occasional witty moment. It seemed to have no real plot except the various difficulties of living in a dull place at a dull school in a poor family, all of which seemingly went nowhere. Only until the movie carried out its final minutes and came to a close, did the movie’s true colors actually come to light. All her life, Lady Bird has found herself resenting her mother, even going all the way to choosing a different name than the one her mother gave her. But when she finally moved to New York for college, finally getting away, she realized what she no longer had, what she could have had, all those years. One of the final moments sums up this reality for Lady Bird when she meets a guy at college, only to give her name as “Christine.” Once that she is finally away from her mother, all she can do is appreciate her.

All in all, this movie was enjoyable, a seemingly meaningless movie, however, until it ends and the true purpose is shown. It’s worth the watch, the exposition is comedic, the story interesting and captivating most of the time, and the ending is worth it even if you hated everything else. It is a solid “A” film. I would recommend this movie if you enjoy slightly fast paced and captivating drama-comedies .