FILM OF THE WEEK

★★★★

Lady Bird (2017) 8.00pm, Friday, Sky Cinema Premiere

“Some people aren’t built happy” The most remarkable thing about Saoirse Ronan’s lm career is her ability to choose scripts that are out of the ordinary. While the CVs of her peers invariably include roles that can best be described as “The Girlfriend” or “The Girlfriend’s Best Friend”, Saoirse continues to choose projects that make it impossible for her to be pigeonholed. Her rst Oscar nod came with Atonement (2007), when the then 13-year-old Irish actress stole the movie from under the noses of Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. Her third nomination arrived this year courtesy of this movie, Greta Gerwig’s (solo) directorial debut. Gerwig had already written the script for Lady Bird, a quasi-autobiographical comingof-age tale, when she met Ronan (promoting Brooklyn) at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival. The director knew instantly she had found her leading lady, not to mention her Muse. “I didn’t realise until Lady Bird came along,” quoth Saoirse, “how starved we are for female comingof-age stories that don’t involve a girl being validated by romance.” The Irish actress is terri c as the artistic, ercely independent Christine (“Lady Bird” is her selfappointed moniker), a Catholic school teenager who constantly clashes with her overwrought mother, played by an equally impressive Laurie Metcalf. While Lady Bird does o er a number of high school tropes – prom pressures; dating the cool dude; dumping the uncool best pal for the hip Mean Girl – it’s to the credit of both Gerwig and Ronan that none of what we see on screen feels formulaic or jaded. Ronan delivers an insightful, precise portrayal of an opinionated teenager who insists on expressing her own individuality, even as she struggles to come to terms with what that actually entails.