Lady Bird

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Lady Bird is a film about the relationship between a teenage girl (played by Saoirse Ronan) and her mother (played by Laurie Metcalf). As a character, Lady Bird is actually really relatable and easy to understand. She has a strained relationship with her mother. She wants to go to school in New York, which her mother doesn’t necessarily agree with. In a lot of ways, I feel like I’ve been through the things Lady Bird has been through. High school has a lot of turbulent moments to it. This movie feels a lot like an image of high school. The dramatic moments feel real. The comedic moments feel real. A lot of the comedy in this movie is very dry and deadpan. It’s done pretty well, and almost always gets a laugh. The heart of this movie truly is the relationship between Lady Bird and her mother. The two actresses do a strong job in this movie. In all honesty, this is Saoirse Ronan’s movie. This is probably one of the best performances she has given in her career so far. Beyond acting opposite Laurie Metcalf as her mother, she does phenomenal acting opposite Lucas Hedges as a guy she has a romantic interest in. Hedges also does a fantastic job as a teenage guy struggling with his own sexuality. The pacing of the movie is fairly slow overall, and it can be generally pretty off-putting for most people. For the most part, it worked pretty well for me. There were points for the movie where I did feel the pacing a touch, but not very often. This doesn’t need to be a fast-paced movie because it’s about a teenage girl and the ups and downs of her senior year of high school. Greta Gerwig’s direction is pretty good too. She really understands how to balance the comedy and drama together. Overall, Lady Bird works as a character piece, telling the story of a teenage girl working her way through life. This is a movie that I really do recommend.

9 / 10