Flying the Nest

Indie darling Greta Gerwig makes her solo writing/directorial debut with Lady Bird, a coming of age film that has been building strongly towards the 2017-2018 Awards season. . . earning an almost unheard of rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Many of the plot points will sound familiar when it comes to a coming of age tale – teen angst, strife between mother and daughter, obsession with sex and losing your virginity, first love, applying for colleges, joining the school theatre club, crushes on teachers and other such things; though, it is not these things that are truly important, but rather the honest, realistic voice in which it is told.

Loosely based off of Greta Gerwig’s own teenage years (and set in her hometown of Sacramento, California), the narrative’s heart is self proclaimed ‘Lady Bird’ – real name Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), a seventeen year old ball of confused energy (she looks more like a teenager than almost any other actress in any movie that has come before, her acne, lack of makeup, tacky red dye-job and awkward clothing selection a perfect image of those rough transitional years). Her muddled heedlessness will be evident from the very beginning, as, almost immediately after she and her mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf – Roseanne), finish listening to “The Grapes of Wrath” on audio book (both in tears) in the car, they argue. . . and things take a rather startling turn. Artsy and creative, yet not fully driven to succeed, she is a walking conundrum (struggling, like many, through the tumultuous teenage years) – both clever and naïve, at times contemplative. . . which then transitions into an impetuous state, she is adrift and asunder in a city which she believes lacks culture (reasons to apply to several East Coast schools).

Her mother, the definition of passive aggressive, has the weight of the world on her shoulders. A passing comment gives us insight into her own troubled childhood, showing that, despite all of the strife in their family life, she has attempted to do a better job for her children when compared to her own upbringing. Her role is utterly complex – at times loving mother, while at others, throwing crushing blows at her daughter (the silent treatment is equally harsh). Working what amounts to two full time jobs, she too is in a state of transition, as she does not truly know how to handle her own unsatisfying life as well as her feelings surrounding her daughter’s impending departure.

Lady Bird’s father, Larry (Tracy Letts), is the more nurturing parent, though, after losing his job, struggles with his own demons – though he never allows the burden to seep into the family dynamic. He is caring and supportive, willing to go behind his wife’s back in order to help his daughter with her applications out of state (something her mother wholly disagrees with).

On the Catholic school front, Lady Bird’s best friend is Julie Steffans (Beanie Feldstein), and together, they do not exactly mesh within the fabric of any clique. Spending most of their time at the hip (one sequence finds them laughing almost to tears while munching on some untransubstantiated holy wafers), it is Julie who is obsessed with her kind, supportive, yet boring math teacher.

So-called love comes from two different sources in Lady Bird’s final year, fellow theatre lover Danny O’Neill (Lucas Hedges – Manchester by the Sea), the son of a wealthy conservative Catholic family, and moody, mostly silent rocker Kyle Scheible (Timothée Chalamet), which, along with her manoeuver to chum around with ‘it’ girl Jenna Walton (Odeya Rush), helps her find her way in with a very different crowd than she is used to hanging around with.

Each character, big or small (including Sister Sarah Joan and Father Leviatch, played masterfully by Lois Smith [Minority Report] and Stephen Henderson [Fences], respectively), is imbued with such a realistic life force, that it feels like they are living their lives, even when the camera is far off following our lead (last year’s Hell or High Water had this very tangible feeling as well).

Location also plays an integral part in the story. Disenchanted with her little slice of life in Sacramento, Lady Bird sees New York as a cultural haven, a place where she can finally find herself. Yet, experience warns us that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence. Sometimes it takes that first extended trip away from home to realize that it wasn’t all that bad, and that perspective can go a long way. After all, parents nurture their kids in a specific location, and, no matter how hard they resist, they always have roots in their hometown, it shaping who they are as a person for the rest of their lives.

Though Lady Bird did not impact me the way it has other critics (perhaps because I have never been a teenaged girl), it is a more than solid effort in this fresh take on the coming of age sub-genre, especially thanks to its realistic teenage voices (somewhat reminiscent of the magic that came from a John Hughes penned script) – a nicely nuanced mixture of poignant drama and subtle comedy. And, finally, for those keen eyed viewers, you will spot a small poster of the film Rushmore several times throughout the motion picture – a Wes Anderson film, he has worked with Saoirse Ronan, Lucas Hedges, and Noah Baumbach (Greta Gerwig’s boyfriend) before – which makes this a nice little inside joke. So, keep an eye out for this critically praised darling, it should make a name for itself this Awards season.