Sooo I know we like to have fun here. We like to tell jokes, shoot the shit, have a good time. Wait, what? It's only me? Well either way, this is a safe place for non-sensicalness. However, the movie Lady Bird, the first time directorial effort from accomplished actress and seemingly-all-around-lovely-person Greta Gerwig (Frances, Ha, Greenberg, 20th Century Women), has truly put me in an odd spot. I loved this movie so much, I found it so refreshing, accurate, and relatable, that I have nary a funny or silly thing to say in reviewing it. This movie is funny, it's sad, it has so much earnest emotion behind it and feels so specific and personally crafted that it feels almost erroneous to try and make jokes about it. Buuuuuut, like this movie proves, a person has got to try and be who they are and figure things out on your own, whether it be living your truth regardless of your family's beliefs, standing up for yourself as an individual against your parents ideas for you, or realizing the guy you're dating is actually just a piece of shit like Jess from Gilmore Girls. God, remember Jess from Gilmore Girls? That show really keyed into exactly how fuckable Milo Ventimiglia was going to grow up to be...
And I did it! I made a joke about wanting to fuck a former 23-year-old playing a high schooler in an overwrought sitcom from when this movie took place! BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME. BABY.
Lady Bird is maybe the best movie I've seen this year. It is surely destined to attain classic status in the genre of "Coming of Age," though I don't want that title to sound reductive. This movie is as much about adults as it is teenagers. It's thoughtful and funny, it's sweet but not saccharine, dramatic but oh-so believable. If it sounds like I'm gushing, it's because I am. I loved this movie so, so much. And for anyone who reads these blogs (I'm positive I'm the only one. Yes, I reread my own blog posts, sue me. Please don't sue me. I'm very poor) you know that me actually loving something is very, very rare.
Saoirse Ronan is the titular Lady Bird, a high school senior local to Sacramento who hates Sacramento with all her heart. She even changed her name from Christine to Lady Bird in an obviously teenage attempt to define herself as an individual. She dreams of going to school on the far superior (because it's new) East Coast. In the meantime she goes to Catholic school, joins a play, has her first serious boyfriend, learns about sex, and everything else that happens to people in their formative years. The loose plot lends all of its time and energy to creating incredible characters. I don't want this review to turn into The Chris Farley show, but it really is an impressive feat Greta Gerwig has pulled off. Every character, seriously, every fucking character is well-conceived and understandable. I have empathy for basically every person on that screen, even the football coach forced into directing the school musical, who cheers with fists raised when his star nails his big solo (like I said, it's a funny movie).
There are two main things I think this movie has working for it. Number one, and most important, is how specifically personal Gerwig makes it. It's dead set in the middle of Sacramento with references and shots that probably have a great deal of meaning if you grew up there (which I did not) which somehow still seem to resonate just as strongly for anyone. This movie is so personal yet so relatable, which, trust me, is an incredibly difficult tight rope balancing act to accomplish. t's not easy to make people feel like they know a place they've never been to, but Lady Bird does it so easily. The movie also takes place during 2002-2003, when, I feel confidant in guessing, is when Greta Gerwig was a senior in high school. In fact, everything that happens in this movie feels like it happened to Gerwig, which is so refreshing and honest and makes the movie endlessly entertaining.
The other thing in the movie that works so well is every relationship that's presented. Saoirse Ronan fucking KILLS it in this movie, and it's so clearly evidenced by how genuine all of her interactions come across with others, even when she's lying about knowing who The Doors are to seem cool (read: a high schooler). I want every movie to star Saoirse Ronan. She is my favorite person named Saoirse, ever (Have you seen Brooklyn? Oh my god that movie is so good just typing its title makes me wanna have a nice cry). The movie is as much about her relationship with her mother as it is about her and her best friend Julie, or her budding romances. And the movie never short changes any of these relationships, they're all fully formed and in one way or another remind me of of my life.
Her relationship with her mother, amazingly portrayed by Laurie Metcalf, is one of the highest points of the film. It feels like such an authentic relationship. In the first scene they literally go from crying together over The Grapes of Wrath on cassette (so funny) to the daughter jumping out of the moving car to avoid being criticized moments later. It's hilarious, yes, but also so representatively perfect of what it feels like to be stuck in the car with your mother for hours on end. Their interactions are frustrating and often sad, with both women to blame at different times for their rifts, but it's also so heartbreakingly sweet. GODDAMN IT I HATE HOW MUCH I LOVED THIS MOVIE.
The OTHER best part of this movie (seriously, I'm sorry, I know this is a boring review that is just sucking this movie's cock) is Jon Brion's score. I don't know if you guys know this, but if a movie has a score by Jon Brion, it's probably going to be a great movie (Eternal Sunshine, Magnolia, I Heart Huckabees, Punch-Drunk Love). It just adds the perfect note of melancholy beauty that only Jon Brion can whimsically imbue in his scores. I could have closed my eyes the whole time and still loved this movie.
Ugh, I'm sick of hearing myself right now. Have I gushed enough? Probably not, but this seems like a good place to stop. I loved this movie. Thank you Greta Gerwig. Don't stop acting as well, but please, please, please don't stop making personal, funny, attentive movies like this one, either. Goddamn.
Grade: 100 out of 100 pink casts and gay boyfriends
2002 ALERT! Things that made me groan or giggle with nostalgic glee:
Pooka shell necklaces!
Crash by Dave Matthews!
9/11! (Okay there was no GLEE involved, but still, totally captured the era)
Clove cigarettes!
Going to Denny's after school plays!
Cry Me a River by JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE.
"Sacramento is the Midwest of California."
"Some people just aren't built happy."
"I like dry humping so much better." Me too, dude. Me too.
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