STAR LADY
Saoirse Ronan mixes comedy and poignancy with equal skill deserving of an Oscar
It’s certainly not the biggest film among the Oscar contenders, nor indeed the most complex. But if there is a more straightforwardly enjoyable film among this year’s nominees than the Saoirse Ronan-starring Lady
Bird (15A) ★★★★★ I’ll be amazed. It’s funny, moving and insightful. From beginning to end, this superficially standard-looking, teenage-rites-of-passage picture is a beautifully executed joy.
Written and directed by Gretta Gerwig (she’s deservedly been nominated for both), it’s the somewhat autobiographical-feeling story of Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson (Ronan), a teenager growing up in Sacramento, California, in the early years of this century, about the same time as Gerwig was doing exactly the same.
Lady Bird – she’s given the nickname to herself in an attempt to make her sound more artistic and interesting – is spirited, headstrong and creative. More than anything, she dreams of getting away from her money-strapped, ‘wrong side of the tracks’ life, from her loving but terminally disillusioned father (Tracy Letts) and her domineering, speak-it-as-it-is-becausethere’s-no-easy-ride mother (Laurie Metcalf ).
Ronan is a revelation, mixing comedy and poignancy with an invisible skill, and fully deserving her Best Actress nomination. Brilliant too (and similarly nominated) is Metcalf, best known as a television actress (in Roseanne and The Big Bang Theory), who grabs her moment on the big screen with a relish.
What follows is a tale of first boyfriends, first kisses, first boyfriends who turn out to be gay, the constantly shifting quicksands of young female friendship. With Academy voters surely keen to advance the female film-making cause, this is definitely one to look out for.