Movie Review - Lady Bird

For months, I had heard about how the movie Lady Bird was this amazing film. Some people felt that it was the best movie of 2017, and the interviews that I had heard (only a couple of them) were impressive. 

And so, obviously when you hear accolades like that, you want to see the movie. I finally got the chance to do so this weekend, when my local library got the movie in. So, I borrowed it, and got the chance to watch it earlier this week.

Indeed, this is an amazing movie! It is only about one hour and a half, but there is so much packed into that, that you feel you truly get a glimpse of the life of one family, and particularly the teenage daughter, during that time. You see the careless words and gestures so common among teenagers, and sometimes from adults, and the lasting impact that these can have, as well as the challenges of trying to get past them. You see the sacrifices made by families for one of their own, especially mothers, and the shifting appreciation of these sacrifices, depending on maturity. You see tensions within American communities between rich and poor, white and non-white, big names and institutions versus smaller, more local ones. You see the longing for something better, and a coming to terms and acceptance of what one has. You see the tensions between popular kids and the rejects, as well as the temptations to join with the popular ones. you see a very realistic urge by a teenager to go anywhere but stay in her hometown, because she feels her hometown is unbearably dull, and the grass always looks greener elsewhere. You even see her ditching her link to her hometown by claiming that she comes from San Francisco, which is not exactly next door to Sacramento. 

Through it all, you get to witness humanity, essentially. The good and the bad, the things that melt your heart, and the things that we all do that make you cringe. These characters feel very realistic, and the version of Sacramento that is portrayed feels like a very relatable suburb that, frankly, could be anywhere. 

That's a lot to fit in a movie of one hour and a half, and yet, writer and director Greta Gerwig managed to do just that. It is easy to see why this received as much praise as it did, because this movie truly is a triumph, taking you through numerous landscapes of emotions, through the peaks and the valleys, if you will.

Saoirse Una Ronan was absolutely brilliant in the title role. I was not immediately familiar with her, but as it turns out, there have been other movies that she was in which I had seen and enjoyed. She was in The Grand Budapest Hotel, which was a very funny movie. also remember her from a prominent role, that of the younger sister/future writer Briony Tallis, which she played in another amazing film from years ago, Atonement. Ronan is very convincing in this movie as a high school senior desperately hoping for entrance into an artsy East Coast school, where she imagines life is more real and substantive than what she experiences in middle California, in the valley between the mountains to the east and the mountains to the west, which Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson likens to being "the Midwest of California."

Laurie Metcalf play Lady Bird's mom, and she also did a fantastic job playing her role, as well. She showed a wide range of emotions, more than filling the shoes required to make the tensions between mother and daughter come alive. In truth, I spent a fair amount of the movie just wondering if this was Aunt Jackie from the old (and I think the new) Roseanne sitcom, because she looked really different, and I did not want to pause the movie just to Google it (I'm not good with actors and actresses). She earned my respect as an actress with this film, as this may have been the best acting that she has ever done, even if this is not going to be the role she is known best for, most likely.

There are laughs along the way, although ultimately, this movie will likely require some tissues, as well. In many ways, it is heartbreaking, even a tearjerker at points.

Yet through it all, it is brilliant, and absolutely shines. It is one of the most human movies that I have ever seen, and I mean that in the most positive sense.

Please do yourself a favor and, if you have not already done so, go and see Lady Bird. I already intend to pick it up again from the library and view it again, not just absorbing everything like the first time, but trying to pick up on some of the subtleties and nuances that I might have missed the first time around. But also, I intend to do this because it is just a great movie, and everything and everyone involved can rejoice in a job very well done!