Gerwig takes flight as director in ‘Lady Bird’
Indie-film favorite takes a star turn behind the camera
Greta Gerwig is in a groove.
The actress has been a festival and indie-film favorite for years, but this year she brought her solo directorial debut, Lady Bird, to Toronto International Film Festival, where the movie found an avalanche of praise.
Indie Wire called the comingof-age tale “a serious Oscar contender.” Variety was confident that “nominations for best picture, director, actress, supporting actress and original screenplay are absolutely on the table.”
Gerwig exhales slightly. “It’s the first time I’ve gotten reactions, so it’s been a very wonder- ful thing to see people connecting,” the director/screenwriter says.
Word spread fast. Lady Bird (in theaters Nov. 3 in New York and Los Angeles, expands to additional cities through Thanksgiving), starring Saoirse Ronan, saw lines wrapped around the theater.
The film is set in Sacramento, the city where Gerwig (and, incidentally, Brie Larson and Jessica Chastain) grew up. Itching to escape her mundane surroundings, the outwardly hostile 17-year-old Christine (Ronan) renames herself “Lady Bird,” rails against her mother, Marion (a stunning Laurie Metcalf ), lies at school about her family’s financial constraints (her father, played Tracy Letts, has lost his job) and finds her first boyfriend (Lucas Hedges).
The familiar elements of adolescence are heightened by Lady Bird’s fearless portrayal of a mother and daughter who chafe against each other as they prepare to be pulled apart by college.
There are no good moms or bad daughters under Gerwig ’s watch. Her women contain multitudes. “The truth is, I don’t know a single perfect mother and I don’t know a single perfect daughter,” Gerwig says.
In that spirit, she added acne to Ronan’s cheeks. “All I see in movies about teenage girls is they have perfect skin and perfect hair, even if they’re supposed to be awkward,” she says. “And the reality of teenagers is, they don’t! And it doesn’t make them less beautiful.”
Gerwig, who has earned acclaim (for her acting and co-writing) in films like Frances Ha and Mistress America, says she got the itch to direct from watching other women’s work.
“Last year was Toni Erdmann,” she says. “I loved it so much. I just kept encountering different women who were making films where I had that same feeling where I wanted to hug the movie and stand up and cheer, and I wanted to know where to put my name.”
With percentages of female directors noticeably on the decline, “it’s about numbers,” she adds, noting that a third of the films shown at the festival this year are directed by women.
“That is very important,” says Gerwig, citing the demand for women’s voices in the marketplace. “The two highest-grossing movies of the year, Wonder Woman and Beauty and the Beast, have shown people want to see these movies. It’s not an act of charity.”