Lady Bird

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This film is so good, so long overdue and so needed. Echoes of John Hughes quickly fade from my mind as Greta Gerwig makes her directorial debut. This film is different, this film is special.

Lady Bird played by Saoirse Ronan is in her final year of High School and as such her life is about to begin, the future beckons. Lady Bird has plans, big plans, she doesn't care that she isn't the cleverest in her class or even the most hardworking, she doesn't care that her family have little money, all things that she is continuously reminded of by her Mother. Her immediate sights are set on escaping, from home, from Sacramento, the dull city she has grown up in. Without telling anyone she applies to a University in New York.

The message Gerwig is sending loud and clear to us and our daughters is that you can do anything you want, you don't have to be pretty, popular, privileged or even clever. You don't need other people to believe in you as long as you believe in yourself. 

For once we are treated to a film about a young woman, by a woman and there is no escaping its authenticity. Gerwig presents the truth without malice and without pointing the finger. The Mother, brilliantly played by Laurie Metcalf is worn down, worn out and worn away by the drudgery and disappointments of her life. There is a sense that she doesn't want her daughter to eclipse her or perhaps to fly away and never come home. But critical and nagging as she is, we are not invited to blame her. Marion works double shifts at the hospital to make ends meet. Her husband is jobless and depressed. Marion is a strong woman, she's tough because she needs to be, we understand.

Lady Bird with her made up name and dyed pink hair is not so much defiant as determined to shape her future in the way that she wants, rather than live a life dictated by others. Lady Bird whole heartedly rejects the limitations that are so readily lined up for her.

Lady Bird is a senior in High School and what kind of film would this be without a touch of teenage romance. Her first love interest, a boy she meets in drama club, turns out to be gay. The second the uber cool Kyle, played by Timothee Chalamet is, well, a bit of an arrogant bore. But then, its not about them and we know that, but more importantly Lady Bird knows it.

Greta Gerwig has given us a teenage girl with ambition and will and determination, she is her own person and we love it. I wanted to clap at the end and shout more, more, more! Greta Gerwig, keep them coming.

© Theresa Collins