‘LADY BIRD’ FEELS AUTHENTIC
Greta Gerwig is spreading her wings as a filmmaker, and she soars with “Lady Bird.”
The actress, best known for co-writing and starring in “Frances Ha,” makes her directorial debut with an intimate study of an eccentric high school senior in Sacramento, Calif. Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) is just dying to stand out — and insists that everyone call her Lady Bird.
Set in the early 2000s, the film opens with Lady Bird’s stern but loving mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf) driving the teen to her Catholic high school. One passive aggressive comment from Marion sparks a defiant act from Lady Bird and sets up the dichotomous motherdaughter dynamic that continues over the film’s 93 minutes.
Lady Bird, who is pegged as an outcast from the get-go with her dyed pink hair and contrasting schoolgirl threads, charms with innocent and clever musings. We giggle along with our protagonist as she navigates teenage life over a one-year span: trying out school plays, boyfriends, best friends, applying to colleges while longing to escape her hometown and working part-time jobs as she grapples with her family’s modest means.
“Lady Bird,” which Gerwig also wrote, is not exactly autobiographical, but definitely selfreflective. Gerwig, like her title character, is a Sacramento native with a computer programmer dad and nurse mom who attended an all-girls Catholic school. But the coming-of-age story does not align chronologically with Gerwig’s life. Of course, Gerwig’s past experience as a teen informs the narrative and makes Lady Bird’s story feel authentic. Gerwig’s current view, as a mature New York woman, imbues the script with a sort of dramatic irony — and a lot of laughs.
Ronan and Tony winner Metcalf are the obvious scene stealers, but the entire cast is excellent. Tracy Letts is all heart as out-of-work dad Larry, whose sympathetic parenting style balances out his wife’s authoritativeness. Lucas Hedges lends an emotional wallop as Lady Bird’s first boyfriend, Danny.
Music, in particular, helps nail the story’s 2002-03 setting. Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River” blasts on the stereo during a house party. In the car, Lady Bird tells her dad that Alanis Morissette wrote “Ironic” in just a few minutes, to which he replies, “I believe it.” And Gerwig manages to evoke genuine feeling with a Dave Matthews Band motif, eschewing the “too cool” attitude and embracing the song “Crash into Me” as wholly meaningful.
With that last feat Gerwig marks herself as a true artist, and hopefully, an auteur in the making.