Lady Bird

Let me first start off by saying that I’ve loved Greta Gerwig for close to a decade now! No, I don’t happen to be a pale skinned white woman who lives in Brooklyn and dates a hipster indie director to up my street cred but I do totally identify with her lust for life. She’s an artistically inclined butterfly that was forced to grow up in a small cow town that would rather deep fry a butterfly than appreciate its beauty. And if you know anything about me, then you’d know that I also grew up in a cow town that would deep fry someone like me in a second if they could legally get away with it; but I’m sorry to break it to V-town, the 60’s were a looooong time ago. And as you can see, just talking about Greta has me already making references to artistically inclined butterflies and beauty; normally the kind of stuff I’d break out when quoting Thom Yorke lyrics from his weird side projects.

But I have to admit that when I first saw the trailer for her directorial debut in Lady Bird, I said to myself "That may be a just a little too white for me." But it’s Greta so I had to pop in! And of course I was the only black male in the theater outside of the janitor who was sweeping the floors and even he looked at me puzzled and said "Yo dawg, Tyler Perry’s Madea Boo 2 is showing at the theater ACROSS the street; not here!" Ok, so maybe that last part didn’t actually happen but that’s only because I wore a hoodie over my head so no one would recognize me or see my face on the way in. But once I finally settled in and got comfortable with my inner white girl, I was able to enjoy what I saw.

Everyone remembers their senior year and how difficult it was. Sure, the parties were fun, you no longer cared about getting good grades, and you finally got that hand job from Jessica in Art class but your home life was a mess. You couldn’t wait to get out of the house and be on your own, especially if you lived in a small, nothing town. But just getting out of the house wasn’t enough, you also wanted to go to the college of your dreams, one that probably cost a ton of money to go to and was nearly impossible to get in; especially when you consider the fact that you didn’t start caring about standardized tests until those rejection letters started pouring in. So naturally your stress level was high.

Well your parents were also stressing during this time because they were about to lose their baby; one who seemingly showed no appreciation for all the sacrifices they made for you over the years. They worked hard to provide you every advantage possible in the world and in the process probably gave up on their dreams to do so. So they had to be thinking to themselves, is this what life is all about; stressing over bills, college tuition, and having fights about being out of touch?

Well this is what Lady Bird is all about; capturing all of these moments that nearly every one of any age can identify with. Christine aka Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) is a senior in high school who wants to get as far away from boring Sacramento as humanly possible. She feels like she cannot truly live and become the person she was meant to be as there’s no true culture or life there and there certainly isn’t anything that will let her explore her artistic side; that is until she finally discovers that there’s a drama club at her school (more on this later). Her mom (Laurie Metcalf) wants her to stay in state because it’s cheaper to go to school and she will still be able to see her on a regular basis. This, as you can imagine, creates tension between the two especially after Lady Bird’s father loses his job in a community that’s not exactly a hot bed for thriving new businesses.

And the fact that they are struggling financially makes it hard for Lady Bird to fit in at her school because she goes to a rich private school where everyone is for the most part walking around with a silver spoon sticking out of their mouths. Her only connection lies in her heavyset best friend Julie who is also in a similar situation. Now I only mention her weight because that’s the only thing that’s keeping her from fitting in herself as she’s one of coolest and nicest girls alive; in the fictional world anyway. And things are great between the two of them, that is until Lady Bird falls for the head drama nerd in Danny O’Neill. At first things appear to be normal and good for her but their relationship takes this weird turn and causes Lady Bird to go off the deep end; affecting not only her life but the lives of everyone she comes into contact with. Now I’ll let you discover the rest for yourself but just know that this film will make you, as my friend described it, "ugly cry" in public. Now I personally didn’t cry but as I mentioned earlier, I totally found a connection with this film.

All of the acting in it is on point and to help keep it from being the Precious of 2017, Gerwig thankfully injects quite a bit of her trademark hipster humor in the film. So there is a healthy balance of drama, humor, and self-discovery in this heartwarming story. In a time where everyone is seemingly at each other’s throats on a consistent basis, it’s refreshing to take a 90 minute break and be reminded of the fact that we are all the same when it comes down to it. I give Lady Bird a rating of very FRESH.