Review: Lady Bird

Image courtesy of A24.

In a scene near the end of Greta Gerwig's wonderful autobiographical semi-directorial debut "Lady Bird," a minor character notes how the titular character - high school senior Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) - describes Sacramento, the city in which she lives, with such loving detail. Lady Bird is surprised by the compliment, considering her feelings for the city she calls home. For much of the film, Lady Bird talks about how much she hates Sacramento, but the nun at her Catholic school who pays the compliment mentions that the girl had paid such great attention to detail while describing the California town.

And that, at its heart, is sort of on what Gerwig's lovely - and often hilarious - film fixes its attentions. Much of the picture follows the uneasy relationship between Lady Bird and her taskmaster mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf), who our protagonist believes is unnecessarily harsh - she chides her daughter about her wardrobe, her choice of schools, her behavior and much more. But the thing is: Marion pays attention to her daughter and, during a scene late in the film, Lady Bird recognizes that often paying attention to and taking interest in another's life is one of the greatest ways to show love.

"Lady Bird" is a coming of age story during which a witty, precocious and, let's be honest, occasionally bratty young woman makes a mess of things and, in the process, becomes wiser. Between her work here and her terrific performance in "Brooklyn," Ronan is easily one of the best actors of her generation and Metcalf takes what could be the thankless role of the overbearing mother and provides a deeply felt portrayal. Playwright Tracy Letts is also great as Lady Bird's easygoing father, who has well-hidden melancholia, while Lucas Hedges shines as a love interest - who has a secret - for Lady Bird and Beanie Feldstein plays one of the most well-drawn sidekicks in recent memory as Lady Bird's kindhearted pal Julie.

As the film opens, Lady Bird has set her sights on college in New York City and away from Sacramento, a town that she feels is vapid and culturally lacking. The year is 2002 and scenes of post-9/11 America are splashed across TV screens in the background. The film is based, in part, on Gerwig's youth. She sort-of made a directorial debut alongside Joe Swanberg with the mumblecore film "Nights and Weekends," of which I was not a fan, but her work here is that of a mature artist. This is a wonderfully warm, very funny and terrifically written movie. It's a film about youth that it took the maturity of an adult to bring to the screen.

Although named Christine, the titular heroine gives herself the name Lady Bird to distinguish herself from the other Catholic school kids with whom she attends school, but doesn't feel a connection of any sort - other than Julie, a good natured girl who appears to have a crush on a math teacher. Lady Bird first chases the affections of Hedges, a theater kid with whom she performs in a school play, and - after that romance fizzles - a pretentious hipster in a band whose aloofness tricks Lady Bird into thinking he is interesting.

There are some musical cues - Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River" - that alert us to the era in which the film is set, but many of the songs in the movie are late 1990s nuggets that are well used - such as Bone Thugs N Harmony's "Tha Crossroads" and Dave Matthews Band's "Crash Into Me," which is utilized to startlingly great effect.

Many of the best films from the past few years have been small budget dramas about existences that don't feel too far removed from ordinary life - for example, "Boyhood," "Moonlight," "The Florida Project" and, now, "Lady Bird." In Gerwig's film, Lady Bird makes the type of relatable mistakes many of us have made while forging our paths through the world. Her character might be a self-imposed outcast - at least, before she attempts to fit in for a brief spell with a few of her school's vapid popular kids - but her life follows a trajectory that many will find familiar.

There's also a wonderful mother-daughter dynamic in the film. The picture opens with Lady Bird and Marion tearing up as they listen to an audio book of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" during a college road trip and then quickly begin bickering after it's over as to what they should listen to next. There are a few grand gestures - a prom sequence, albeit a lovely one, and a goodbye at an airport - but "Lady Bird," much like "Boyhood" and "Moonlight," finds its magic in the smaller moments. This is a lovely film, a genuine calling card for Gerwig as a director and one of the year's best movies.