Lady Bird: A Sweet but Not Quite Soaring Coming-of-Age Tale
A charming, yet not particularly outstanding, tragicomedy about the final year of high school as experienced by a dreamy and independent girl searching for love and freedom.
Seventeen-year-old Christine is finishing her senior year at a Sacramento, California high school. Like many her age, she’s a walking contradiction: she refuses to submit to her overbearing mother, rejects her given name, inventing the nickname “Lady Bird” for herself, seeks opportunities to attend college on the other side of the country, and, of course, experiences love for the first time. In an attempt to break free from the tiresome cycle of problems and imagined troubles, Lady Bird goes against the rules accepted in her environment, but this only convinces her of one thing: her parents were right about many things, and she has no closer people and never will.
The original screenplay for the film was 350 pages long, which would have resulted in a six-hour runtime, so Greta Gerwig had to radically work on cuts in the script.
An “Un-Academic” Oscar Contender
The main global film award, the “Oscar,” after a series of scandals and clumsy innovations, has indeed begun to change. If previously, films nominated in the “Best Picture” category were difficult to watch without falling asleep or yawning your jaw off, now every film is full of surprises and unexpected authorial decisions. However, even against the backdrop of eccentric competitors, “Lady Bird” by director Greta Gerwig stands out. This film is so “un-academic” that it would be more logical to see it among the laureates of “Sundance” or “Tribeca,” but that’s the kind of “Oscar” we have now – there’s room for teenage tragicomedies about growing up and finding oneself.
After the script became known in Hollywood, director Noah Baumbach offered Gerwig to direct “Lady Bird,” and Armie Hammer volunteered to produce the film, but the author preferred to concentrate management in her own hands.
A Straightforward Teen Story
In fairness, if it weren’t for the five nominations for the American Film Academy Award, the film would hardly have deserved such close attention. In reality, it’s a very straightforward teenage story, of which a good dozen are released on screens every year. Of course, the film reaches a certain high level due to confident acting performances, a light sadness and melancholy permeating every frame, and confident direction that doesn’t allow the viewer to get bored. However, you wouldn’t call “Lady Bird” stunning; rather, it’s worth saying that the film risks being instantly erased from memory if the awards pass it by, which, to put it mildly, is very likely.
The Allure of “Lady Bird”
What so charmed the film award selectors and critics who praised the film after its premiere at the Telluride Film Festival? Most likely, the author’s undisguised love, as Gerwig wrote the film based on her own script, for her characters. It’s hard to recall such a bright film, even in the saddest and most desperate moments. There are no negative characters in “Lady Bird”; all conflicts and disputes turn into jokes and humor at worst, and at best, they turn into moments of light sadness, like the scene of reading letters or Christine’s parting with Danny. This movie is like a downy featherbed or a warm cashmere blanket that envelops and warms, despite the storms raging somewhere. However, this enveloping effect completely deprives the viewer of a sense of anxiety for the characters – for some reason, it’s immediately clear that everything will be fine with them, and if they don’t hug in the end in a big company, they will shower each other with gratitude. And that’s what happens.
This, however, does not mean that following Christine’s adventures is boring; it’s just not as challenging a film as “Lady Bird” wants to seem. Yes, the main character treats her best friend badly, she deceives acquaintances and conflicts with her mother, she abandons her “respectable” boyfriend for a “night hooligan,” she is not as smart and talented as she and we would like – just an ordinary girl of the kind that classmates forget in the first place. But from time to time, it’s useful to look at such an “average” girl, not a tearaway and not the first smart girl in school, to make sure that life is in full swing everywhere.
Final Thoughts
Of course, “Lady Bird” skillfully uses its main trump card – the talent and charm of Saoirse Ronan. Of course, the film impresses with the work of Laurie Metcalf, who played Christine’s mother, and a scattering of young stars, from Lucas Hedges to Timothée Chalamet. Of course, the film is imbued with the author’s deep personal sympathy for the Californian hinterland, which even Americans themselves sometimes don’t know about. It’s a warm and sunny film, but not the kind of film that reshapes the idea of teenagers and young people, of the problems of fathers and children, of love and growing up. A competent, charming film, but no more, no matter how much we try to compare ourselves with Christine and remember our own youth.