+ Best Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Timothée Chalamet + Best Autobiographical Movie of the Year + Best California Movie of the Year
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| Saoirse Ronan in the Catholic high school her character attends in Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird on its unusually colorline-finished poster |
Sacramento, California, 2002: Christina "Lady Bird" is a young woman at the local Catholic high school. She and her mother are close but have many fights, and especially over Lady Bird's wish to leave California for an East Coast university, which her family cannot afford.
Lady Bird is the second film for great Sacramento native writer-director Greta Gerwig (Mistress America (2015)), who debuted as a filmmaker with the little-known drama-romance Nights and Weekends (2008). She is best known as an actress in films such as Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha (2012) and Mistress America, all by her boyfriend, the also great filmmaker Noah Baumbach.
The story here is semi-autobiographical. It is a sensitive and very funny coming-of-age mother-daughter story that is tightly connected to its location Sacramento, which is presented with a mix of scathing disdain and genuine fondness.
Having followed Gerwig through her performances for years, it is such a great fortune to be able to see her making this film, which reveals that she has a sharp hand behind the camera as well in front of it.
Saoirse Ronan (The Way Back (2010)) cements her position as the most exciting young actress today: Both her and Lucas Hedges (Kill the Messenger (2014)), who plays her very sweet boyfriend in the movie for a while, have the physiques and faces that seem credible in roles that are some years younger than what they really are. Timothée Chalamet (Hot Summer Nights (2017)), another hot ticket right now, also plays in Lady Bird, SPOILER portraying the pretentious douche, who takes her virginity in a sex scene that, even compared to all the many often incredibly short sex scenes that have been made due to prematurely climaxing men, is extremely short.
The film also has terrific grownup performances from Lois Smith (The Comedian (2016)) in a small role as a nun who takes Lady Bird's identity-probing transgressions calmly; from Tracy Letts (Chicago Cab (1997)) as her father, who is a good father despite getting fired and feeling shame over his feeling redundant in the modern workplace; and especially from Laurie Metcalf (Roseanne (1988-18)), who as Lady Bird's to-the-point mother Marion reminded me of my own mother and our dynamic. Marion lets her daughter have a piece of her mind, her straight opinions, even when they could have waited or been left out entirely, but she does so out of a sincere affection, and Metcalf's performance is never more painfully astute than in a scene towards the end, when she realizes in her car that she was too stern and unforgiving towards Lady Bird's move to the East.
Lady Bird's narrative structure is not a roller-coaster-like voyage; it is relatively flat, a realistic portrayal of a year in the life of a young woman, and Gerwig seems to prioritize truthfulness to her experience of growing up, (she keeps at least one element, (a change of drama teacher), which isn't directly central to the storytelling.) Her personal and highly relatable experience comes to vivid, charming, humorous life in this truly delightful movie.
Related posts:
Greta Gerwig: 2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Wiener-Dog (2016) - Solondz's incisive and funny dog saga dramedy (co-star)
Frances Ha (2012) or, Growing Older Ain't Easy (co-writer/star)
To Rome With Love (2012) - Woody Allen's slightest film to date (co-star)
Arthur (2011) - Frenzied, colossal egotrip remake, irredeemable DOA (supporting actor)
Greenberg (2010) - Baumbach's uniquely downbeat LA-romance depressant (supporting actor)
The House of the Devil (2009) - West's energetic, scary throwback period horror (co-star)
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 10 mil. $
Box office: 75.6 mil. $ and counting
= Huge hit
[Lady Bird premiered 1 September (Colorado's Telluride Film Festival) and runs 93 minutes. Gerwig reportedly spent years writing the film, which at one point was over 350 pages long with the title Mothers and Daughters. Gerwig cast Ronan first, after meeting her at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015. Shooting ran from August 2016 - ? in California, including Sacramento and Los Angeles, and in New York. The film opened #26 in 4 theaters to a hefty 364k $ first weekend in North America, (the second best per theater average of 2017 there) and widened to peak at #8 and in 1,557 theaters (different weeks), grossing 48.9 mil. $ (64.7 % of the total gross to date). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets have been the UK with 7.5 mil. $ (9.9 %) and Australia with 3.3 mil. $ (4.4 %). The film has one scheduled market yet to open in: Japan on 1 June. It was nominated for 5 Oscars:Best Picture - lost to the inferior The Shape of Water, Best Actress (Ronan) - lost to Frances McDormand in great Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Best Supporting Actress (Metcalf) - lost to Allison Janney in I, Tonya, Best Director - lost to Guillermo del Toro for Shape of Water and Best Original Screenplay - lost to Jordan Peele for great Get Out. The film won 2/4 Golden Globe noms, was nominated for 3 BAFTAs, won an AFI award, 1/4 Independent Spirit award nominations, 3 National Board of Review awards and many other honors. Gerwig has no film of her own set up yet, but has said that she would like to make "a quartet of Sacramento films." She returned with a voice performance in Isle of Dogs (2018) and a physical performance in Bergman Island (2019). Ronan returned in On Chesil Beach (2017). Lady Bird is certified fresh at 99 % with an 8.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Lady Bird?
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