Lady Bird: Coming Of Age Done Right

I don't know what it is, but I really love coming of age movies. We've all had "rough childhoods" even though most of them have been Downy soft. But, there's something about watching an angsty child or teen go through an emotional reboot that comforts us in our lives. Movies like Dazed and Confused, The Breakfast Club, The Graduate, The Way Way Back, The Edge of Seventeen, Say Anything really know how to do coming of age right, even if most of them are somewhat formulaic. Lady Bird joins the ranks of one of the best coming of age movies. It reaches new heights as well for flipping the script on formula and structure to give us something new and great. Greta Gerwig's directorial debut is nothing short of fantastic.

Saoirse Ronan is Christine, but has self-dubbed herself "Lady Bird". She's a senior at a Catholic school (even though she's got zero faith in a God) her mother (Laurie Metcalf) sent her to because her brother "saw someone knifed at the public school". Most of the students come from upper class families, while Lady Bird's parents are struggling to make ends meet. Lady Bird spends her days like the typical teenage girl-- struggling more with her social life than her academic one. She crushes on guys like Danny (Lucas Hedges), joins activities with her friend Julie to meet said guys, and squabbles with her mom who, like her, has a flair for the dramatic.

The thing that I really like about Gerwig's crafting of Lady Bird is that she's not this unique flower. She's not the manic pixie dream girl wildcard character whose unique individuality is the core of her being.  She's like every basic high school student who hasn't really found her true self yet. She doesn't love anything because it's a part of her core interests... she loves things because other people she looks up to loves them. She joins the play because the guy she's interested in is in the play. She desecrates a nun's car in order to gain the attention of a more popular girl. She claims to know obvious pop culture references in fear of looking lesser than to the person dishing them out. She also has unrealistic expectations for herself, even though they're quite self-evident. She's upset when a guidance counselor laughs at her for wanting to get into Yale, even though her grades are sub par. Lady Bird conforms to whatever others around her love, thus crafting her counterfeit personality.

Gerwig knows that teenagers are amorphous blobs that rarely carry around a uniqueness to them. They are told by others what to like, what to watch, what to listen to, and what is cool and uncool. That's what makes the movie feel so real. Lady Bird is all of us when we were teenagers. We were overly dramatic (though I'm sure most of us didn't roll out of a moving car in the midst of an argument with our mom) and mischevious little shits who thought we knew everything and, in reality, knew nothing. It's not until we took a good hard look at who we were as individuals did we start to shape the people we were to become. Gerwig crafts such a wonderful narrative around the truth of youth that this movie will speak to anyone, no matter what the age.

Ronan does an amazing job as Lady Bird. Assuming she's drawing partly from her own childhood, her portrayal is very real. Her performance is the most authentic thing about Christine. The other aspect of the film that's terrific is her relationship with her parents. Her father is the "friendly" parent, always putting on a smile and never causing a rift with his daughter-- even though there is a lot of inner pain going on with him that he's perfected shielding his kids from. Her mother is the over-worked nurse who wears her emotions on her sleeve, always stressed, and never afraid to pass off some harsh judgment on anything she doesn't see eye to eye on. This continuously causes a rift between her and her daughter, which in turn, causes Lady Bird and her father to get closer. The problem with Lady Bird is that she's very much like her mother (like we all know we truly are deep down) and this causes tantrum-inducing conflict. The way Gerwig has written these characters is like she truly knows all of us.

Finally, Gerwig's storytelling is remarkable. She comes from a line of indie movies (and Noah Baumbach films), so she's picked up a few tricks about messing with the conventions of storytelling and film narratives. Gerwig spoon-feeds her audience absolutely nothing. She gives the viewer the benefit of the doubt that they have a brain. When Lady Bird is opening letters from colleges she's applied to, there's no long focus on the letter or narrator telling us whether she got in or not. She relies on her actress to provide the emotions. Lady Bird has a Mexican brother, Miguel. There isn't some unnecessary explanatory moment where we're told Miguel was adopted or abandoned by his family or anything like that. Lady Bird calls him brother. Her parents call him son. We don't need the intricacies of how a non-white dude ended up in a white family. To them-- he's family and his origin story is unimportant. I loved that about the film.

Lady Bird currently sits at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with 161 reviews counted. This is no easy feat, but it is certainly earned. I can't recall the last 100% fresh rated theatrically released film. It's not playing everywhere, but if you are able to find it somewhere near you (or can make a trip to LA), I highly urge you to see this movie. It's an enjoyable and refreshing trip to the cinema, and I'm willing to bet somehow it will speak to every one of you.

A