Lady Bird
(2017)
(SPOILERS) You can see the Noah Baumbach influence on Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s directorial
debut, with whom she collaborated on Frances
Ha; an intimate, lo-fi, post-Woody Allen (as in, post-feted, respected
Woody Allen) dramedy canvas that has traditionally been the New Yorker’s
milieu. But as an adopted, spiritual New Yorker, I suspect Gerwig honourably
qualifies, even as Lady Bird is a
love letter/ nostalgia trip to her home city of Sacramento.
As such, Saoirse Ronan is very much playing Gerwig in 2002, or
her thereabouts that period – Gerwig has said that nothing that happens in the
movie actually happened to her “but it
has a core truth that resonates with what I know” – hence the somewhat superfluous background build
up to the second Iraq War (although it does, in fairness, fuel many unwittingly
amusing remarks from Timothée
Chalamet’s too-cool-for-life-let-alone-school hipster Kyle). And Ronan’s
outstanding; the only factor against her in the Oscar stakes, aside from
Frances McDormand and three other contenders, was that this kind of character,
a small-town girl who perceives more, wants more and accordingly messes up more
than those around her, destined as she is for better things (obviously, being
based on someone who has found a degree of stardom), is a very familiar one. Lady Bird’s a very familiar kind of
movie, and a very likeable one, but it has about forty years of similarly-populated
rites-of-passage pictures to fend off in order to make a distinctive mark on
the landscape.
Accordingly, we encounter all the recognisable teen trials
and tribulations; of parents both understanding (Tracy Letts as Lady Bird’s
hugely sympathetic but depressed dad) and not-so-much (Laurie Metcalf,
well-deserving of that Oscar nomination as her
loving-but-unable-to-express-herself-without-chiding mother); of first loves who
prove a disappointment (Lucas Hedges as star stage performer Danny, who
naturally turns out to be gay) or a delusion (aforementioned musician Kyle, so narcissistically
self-involved, he turns back to his reading material after deflowering her); of
friends spurned (Julie, played by scene-stealing Beanie Feldstein, who you
instantly think looks like a female Jonah Hill, which is entirely because she’s
Jonah Hill’s little sister) and fake (Odeya Rush’s superficial rich kid Jenna).
Quirky characters populate the edges of the frame of such a
formula, of course: Lois Smith as Sister Sarah, who strikes a hard line but
finds Lady Bird’s “Just Married” – complete with a picture of Jesus – graffiti
on her car amusing: Stephen Henderson’s Father Leviatch, the misunderstood
drama teacher who simply feels too
much: combative adopted brother Jordan (Miguel McPherson), forming a
facially-pierced double-act with girlfriend Shelly (Marielle Scott) before
getting a makeover and the job dad has also gone for.
What lifts the picture from the merely slight-and-forgettable
is Gerwig’s abiding sense of humour, Lady Bird/Christine possessed of the same irrepressible
strength of personality as her mother, whether being suspended for her adroitly
colourful metaphor during an abortion lecture or – in the most absurd event of
the picture, so potentially wrong-footing an audience tonally – “stepping” out
of a moving vehicle to avoid an extended harangue from mom in the first scene.
Is Lady Bird Best Picture Oscar material?
Not really, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t superior to a several of this year’s
contenders. Is Gerwig likely to continue on a path penning semi-autobiographical
stand-ins for herself? Very probably, but why not? It worked for the
now-disgraced exemplar of that mode for a good quarter of a century.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
Comments
Post a Comment