OVP: Lady Bird (2017)

Film: Lady Bird (2017)
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothee Chalamet
Director: Greta Gerwig
Oscar History: 5 nominations (Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Actress-Saoirse Ronan, Supporting Actress-Laurie Metcalf)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Greta Gerwig is the sort of performer, so far, that it's very easy to admire for me that I couldn't quite love.  Frances Ha and 20th Century Women were both very good performances, frequently with her finding a groove that I found fascinating, but I'll be honest here that I haven't been as in love with her as the rest of collective Gay Film Twitter.  I felt like there was something wrong with me there, but I stand behind it (some actors just don't click in the same way as others for you, and that's okay).  I will say, though, that I was terrified heading into Lady Bird for another round of me hiding my review under a bushel, trying to avoid anyone calling out my befuddlement over her being declared the most vibrant filmmaker working.  To my relief, and then to my sheer delight, Lady Bird did not fall into that camp.  In fact, I not only love the movie, but adore it, and the way that Gerwig has been able to transform her onscreen persona into something magical behind the camera.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around Christine aka Lady Bird (Ronan), a young woman (who is suspiciously the exact same age as me considering when the film takes place as I deduced while the movie was unfolding, which made several of the characters all the more compelling in a narcissistic way), who is trying desperately to escape the life her parents have provided for her.  Living in Sacramento, she pines for the fancier houses in the better side of the town, wishing that she could have the things the "beautiful" girls in her class also enjoy.  She falls for two different boys Danny (Hedges) and Kyle (Chalamet), both ending in different forms of disaster, and has a constant fight with her mother Marion (Metcalf), over money, her treatment of her father, and her general disdain for where she lives.  The movie's backdrop is Lady Bird wanting to become a something she's not, and when given the opportunity decides she can be both herself and what she always dreamed of becoming.  Told in the backdrop of Sacramento circa 2002-03, it's a coming-of-age story that likely mirrored Gerwig's, a young performer who eventually went to Barnard to pursue a degree in English, but had aspirations to become a performer (that obviously came true).

If that sounds like boilerplate high school coming-of-age, it only feels that way when you recap the movie, as Gerwig's sharp, specific writing style is so witty and observational there's nothing cliched in the confines of Lady Bird.  An obviously personal film, the movie is detailed (note the caste system of cell phones and house sizes, or the way that the music is plucked off of a Top 40 chart rather than some hipster dreamscape-Lady Bird would go for what is conventional, not what is happening in the back of a record store).  I loved the way that her story unfolds, with none of the characters becoming caricatures, or even us getting all of the explanations (you'll want to spend more time with each of these people, but you end the movie getting a sense of who they are as human beings and never feel like the movie isn't complete).

The acting in the movie is equal to the writing and assured direction, and uniformly good.  Ronan is totally believable as an American teenage girl trying to prove she's not a cliche by falling into the same path so many before her have trod, and is at her best when she's finding a truth in what she feels and what she expects herself to feel.  Ronan, so porcelain and tragic in Brooklyn, finds a heartier disposition here and honestly-this should be a third Oscar nomination for her, even if it's not entirely in AMPAS's wheelhouse.  I suspect her onscreen mother will have a better shot at it, as Laurie Metcalf finally gets a big-screen role worthy of her acting talents, subdued but pointed (and imperfect but loving) as Ronan's mother.  I loved the very slim views we get into her as a person; look at how she adores seeing other people's babies or the calming, underlying love she has for all of her family, even if her outside is bluster.  Metcalf, so good at finding that woman beneath a hard exterior, is a flawless scene partner for Ronan (I'd have never put the two together, so hats off to casting director Heidi Griffiths on that front).  Additionally, you have Hedges and Chalamet, both so believable in their roles you'd be forgiven for thinking they were in fact these men in real-life, as her two ill-fated suitors.  Chalamet has the dreamy, obtuse intellectual routine down-pat, a jerk who it's easy to fall in love with, and we get why Lady Bird falls for him so quickly.  Hedges, on the other hand, is equally magnetic as Danny, a closeted young gay man whose relationship with Lady Bird ends when she catches him kissing another boy in a bathroom stall.  The scene where she confronts him, and then he bursts into constant, hyperventilating tears is jaw-droppingly honest, real, and heartbreaking.  This is perhaps the best illustration of what Gerwig is getting at in Lady Bird-the way that real life so often gets in the way of how we feel the world should be.  Her observational power, combined with bravura performances by everyone in the cast, makes this a must-watch.