‘Lady Bird’ feels real, and there’s probably a good reason
There are the coming-of-age films full of sex jokes, wild parties and cardboard parents and teachers, and then those that honestly examine the befuddling, painful life of the modern American teenager without scrimping on the humor.
“Lady Bird” adds itself among the smarter, classier examples of the latter, thanks to the gifted, realistic performances of its lead actors and sharp dialogue written by firsttime, 30-something director Greta Gerwig, better known as an actress in a bevy of well-received indie films.
Ms. Gerwig grew up in Sacramento, attended Catholic school and headed off to college in New York City. She has written a dramedy in which the protagonist, Christine McPherson, lives in
Sacramento in 2002-03, attends Catholic high school and pines to leave California for more enlightening cultural-educational experiences in New York. Ms. Gerwin presumably knows from whence she writes.
Christine is played by Saoirse Ronan, an Academy Award-nominated actress for “Brooklyn,” whose performance easily captivates for 90 or more minutes. She is a mischievous, sharp-tongued rebel here who finds Sacramento stultifying and longs for escape. She has branded herself “Lady Bird” instead of Christine without explanation, though it almost certainly has nothing to do with any former U.S. first lady.
The other long-to-be-remembered performance is by Emmy/Tony winner Laurie Metcalf, playing Christine’s wearied, judgmental mother, Marion. She is passive-aggressive and negative about her daughter’s future, concealing her love just below the surface while holding together a home whose finances grow increasingly bleak.
Playwright/actor Tracy Letts is the positive parent encouraging Christine in his mild-mannered way, while wrestling with a job loss that strips him of his dignity. Despite his troubles, he is a nice, light counterpoint and also above caricature with every perfectly nuanced reaction to wife and daughter.
Half of “Lady Bird” is about that home life, especially the strained, yearning mother-daughter relationship that probably only every mother and daughter in the universe will find recognizable to some degree.
The other half of the film, as required in a coming-of-age tale, is about school, friends and dating. Issues arise involving loyalty, betrayal, virginity, homosexuality, honesty, deceit and some painful, frightening auditions for the school musical. Two boys very different from one another (one played by Lucas Hedges, whom you may recognize from last year’s “Manchester by the Sea”) enter Christine’s world to very different effect, showing both the sweet and dark sides of the teenage male.
The quibble of any note concerns plot, in that “Lady Bird” follows a formulaic path in which the protagonist has a close friend who’s not as cool as some kids, who thus has to get dropped for the sake of sucking up to a higher clique, and who then has to re-emerge when our heroine smartens up again — and the shifts aren’t set up well. We’ve seen this movie before, and Christine’s decisions don’t feel as authentic here as do other aspects of the picture.
But Christine/Lady Bird is easy enough to root for, even when missteps are made. The character’s imperfect, but we get a feeling she’ll come out fine in the end, maybe even go to New York and become a fine actress. Maybe even write and direct a fine movie in her early 30s. Yeah, that’d be a nice ending — or hopefully, just a beginning for Ms. Gerwig.