Considering how many bad coming of age stories exist in the
film industry, Lady Bird is
comparably refreshing. It’s short at 93
minutes. The two main leads, Saoirse
Ronan, as the daughter Lady Bird and Laurie Metcalf as Marion the mother, are
genuine human beings rather than caricatures.
Their arguments and struggles as well as begrudged affection for each
other does not come across as affected.
And the movie overall is not ham-handed or cynical like the typical coming-of-age
film. It’s not perfect, either.
Lady Bird is in her senior year of attending a Catholic high
school in Sacramento, California, and hopes to attend college at an eastern
school. A few things are getting in her
way, however. Her family is not
rich. Lady Bird’s grades are
insufficient. And most importantly, her
mother is opposed to her going east.
In the meantime, Lady Bird mildly rebels against the
Catholic school she attends, but never to the point where she rejects its
authority. She has her first sexual
encounter during her senior year, smokes cigarettes and occasionally smokes
marijuana, and fights and makes up with her best friend, Julie (Beanie
Feldstein). She has two boyfriends
during the film. One is Danny (Lucas
Hedges), a seemingly honest and innocent boy who we discover, in the most
contrived manner, is gay. The other
boyfriend, Kyle (Timothée Chalamet), deflowers Lady Bird only to reveal
afterwards he’s been with a number of girls before. Frankly, Kyle was not a necessary character
in the film.
The only important relationship in the entire film is between
Lady Bird and her mother. The mother and
daughter cry together, fight and almost always in the end makeup. Lady Bird’s
affectionate father, Larry (Tracy Letts) mostly remains in the background and
has little impact in pacifying the strong wills of his wife and daughter. Sometimes the mother and daughter badly hurt
each other, and the hurt never entirely goes away – even when Lady Bird finally
receives acceptance to a college in New York.
Bored and frustrated with Sacramento, Lady Bird’s relationship with the
city is similar to that with her mother (the symbolism is a bit forced).
To listen to certain reviewers, you would think such a film
is something never seen before. It makes
one nervous hearing terms such as honest
and special and lovely and warm loosely
thrown around like we’ve run out of other verbs or adverbs or adjectives to
describe the film. None of these
superlatives are particularly precise. Probably the most accurate review I read
described the film as self-conscious while redeemed by the acting of Ronan and
Metcalf. It went on to label Greta
Gerwig’s directing style as “stiff and mannered.” (http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2017/09/telluride-17-lady-bird.html)
I liked Lady Bird
probably as much as any film in this kind of genre. That’s not saying all that much. But when the mother and daughter characters
are on screen together, the film is powerful.
These scenes come close to making the viewer uncomfortable and help us appreciate
the difficulties families go through when adolescent children are present. The script also treats these difficulties
with great care. Without that mother/daughter
relationship, the film would not be unique.
With the exception of Larry and Julie, none of the other characters in
the film come even close to full development.
And very few scenes where the two main characters are not together leave
any lasting impression.
As many reviewers point out (and without maybe even being
aware of what they are saying), there was nothing groundbreaking in this
film. I have difficulty believing we
will remember this film in a few years.
Hopefully, Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf will go on to play other
roles in the future that helps us remember them better. The credit for any value of this film should
go all to them.
November 25, 2017
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