Lady Bird – Directed by: Greta Gerwig

                     Written by: Greta Gerwig

               The movie “Lady Bird”, is about a teenage girl in her last year of high school experiencing what most teenagers experience; The beginning of Life~! Lady Bird or Christine, who is played by Saorise Ronan and her mother Marion is played Laurie Metcalf who also plays Jackie the sister of Roseanne in the sitcom “Roseanne”. I love this mother daughter duo! They couldn’t have portrayed what mothers and daughters all over the world experience on a day to day basis anymore vivid. Marion who is a nurse, works long hours or what healthcare professionals know all too well as double shifts. Her father is unemployed, and Lady Bird wants to go to school in New York. Like some middle-class families the funds for Lady Bird to attend an expensive school live the one’s in New York are just not available. She is bored with high school like most are by their senior year and is excited to be off on her own. There are a series of events that are conflicts in the film that keep the viewer intrigued with what seems like a typical household, like when Lady Bird kisses her first boy then finds out he likes guys, or when she loses her virginity and the guy has “done it”, more times than he can count! There are also her disruptions in school like when she throws her math teachers grade book in the trash and lies about her grade, or when she tissues one of the “Sisters” cars to fit in with the cool girl! I neglected to mention that she attends a catholic school because her older brother who once attended public school saw someone stabbed in front of him… so the mother says! Her brother also has a live-in girlfriend. The climax of the film is really the end, when Lady Bird’s mother accepts that her daughter is going to college in New York. The film is one that portrays familiar family behavior that we all know of or have know at some point or another. With its real-life scenarios and the language to match you can only laugh and enjoy a movie like “Lady Bird”.

               My interpretation of the purpose of the film is that it is meant to bring together families while engaging in a film that brings our family issues into a funny and serious spotlight. From a female gaze the film gives the audience a mom who is dominant in the household while her husband is looking for work. The role of lady bird and eagerness to split from her parents and experience life on her own is a strong and courageous role of a young and ambitious teenager.

               I read a review of “Lady Bird” in an online article by The New Yorker. The part I liked the most is as follows: “Lady Bird isn’t a film that is stuck in conventions; it’s one that borrows them, but treating them, too, with a sort of practical respect for a mature art that’s akin to the very reconciliations that are built into the story itself”. (Brody, 2017) In other words this film doesn’t get old, it won’t get old because the things that are in the storyline are everyday issues, family struggles, and teenager reality. Economies change but interpersonal communication within families are always areas that will need to be developed to be able to work!