Lady Bird is a deeply personal story for director Greta Gerwig. Her creative process involved years of writing, leading the cast and crew on tours of her hometown, and giving them her old high-school journals, all to evoke the same cynical nostalgia that inspired the story in the first place. What has made Lady Bird such a success though is the level at which Gerwig’s own coming-of-age resonates with audiences, picking up on the tiniest details of ordinary lives that are usually forgotten over time. On a broader level it also offers an authentic female perspective of adolescence, an angle that is often misrepresented or altogether ignored by the male-dominated film industry. All of this is bound together by a well-paced screenplay and cohesive cast, producing realistic representations of socially isolated women, unsatisfying relationships, and a post-millennium America.
Among the other Oscar contenders this year, it bears the most similarities to Luca Guadagnino’s coming-of-age drama Call Me By Your Name. Both examine adolescence as a significant time of development, positioning their lead characters as uncertain, self-conscious individuals awkwardly trying to bridge the gap from childhood to adulthood. But where Call Me By Your Name offers a nostalgic, idyllic celebration of youth, Gerwig takes a much more sardonic approach, dragging out every social gaffe, ill-considered remark, and twinge of regret.
At its emotional centre, Saoirse Ronan embraces the social baggage of a teenager trying to find her way in a world full of contradictions. She captures the awkward physicality of a girl who still isn’t familiar with her lanky limbs or identity, yet one who is still trying to rise above everything that she believes is holding her back. For a start, she sees her real given name, Christine, as nothing more than a mark of her parents’ control over her life. By adopting the pseudonym Lady Bird, she is carving herself out a new identity that doesn’t have any traces of her parents’ influence.
But perhaps Ronan’s greatest accomplishment in this role is her embodiment of a girl who possesses flaws that, by all conventional definitions, shouldn’t make her so likeable – and yet she is. Just like every teenager, she makes mistakes, goes through disappointing relationships, suffers insensitive family members, and struggles against class boundaries. At the same time Lady Bird expresses the idealism of youth, attempting to become a better version of herself whilst facing a truly scary possibility – that this better version doesn’t exist. Ronan strikes just the right balance of ambition and insecurity, creating a character who is paradoxically both an average teenager and a unique individual.
And then there’s Marion, who carries her own share of problems that aren’t too far removed from her daughter’s. Laurie Metcalf delivers a wonderfully nuanced performance as the exasperated mother who is “warm, but she’s also kind of scary”. Just like Lady Bird, Marion is constantly let down by her own dependence on external validation, expecting praise for her hard work while obliviously denying her daughter the exact same kind of support.
The two lead characters are mirrors of each other, displaying the same qualities years apart in experience and wisdom. Lady Bird and Marion both desperately want to form a connection, and yet their biggest barrier is their own pride and reluctance to compromise. Despite this, the pettiness of their contempt reveals itself in moments of brief affection, when all disdain is quickly pushed to the side by something as simple as shared admiration of a pretty dress.
Gerwig instills a natural flow from scene to scene, skipping through the final year of Lady Bird’s high school life at a comfortable pace. Each scene finds an emotional or symbolic connection to the next, with even the jumps in time smoothly slotting into her personal journey. As a result it feels as if Lady Bird is telling this story in nostalgic retrospect, recounting the highs and lows of a transformative year that felt like it was over before it had ever really begun.
By tapping into the oddities of mother-daughter relationships, Gerwig proves her capability of pinpointing the quirky moments of life that are left unnoticed or unspoken. The bickering between Lady Bird and Marion isn’t engaging because of any extraordinary factor, but rather the opposite; it is an ordinary yet nuanced illustration of every argument that has ever happened between a mother and her child. Ronan and Metcalf’s performances ultimately carry Gerwig’s strong vision and screenplay from start to finish, creating an affectionately satirical reflection on the awkward days of our adolescence.
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