Lady Bird *** (2017, Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lois Smith, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet) – Movie Review

Lady Bird has its charms, a lot of them, but is way over-praised. It is best to come to it fresh, without knowledge or expectations of it. Then it might well charm and impress. It is basically a small indie punching well above its weight.

As the Golden Globe winner for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and a five category Oscar nominee, it seems to fall short.

Writer-director Greta Gerwig paints a strong portrait of women but also a poor picture of men, whom she doesn’t seem to like or understand very much. Actually, it is a strong portrait of two women – a 17-year-old Sacramento girl coming of age in 2002, and her controlling, rather desperate mother. It is a film almost entirely about these two characters.

Saoirse Ronan as Lady Bird.

They are performed admirably by Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf. Ronan is good but Metcalf is great, without any chance of playing to her strength of comedic acting. Metcalf would richly deserve that Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar, though it is almost certain to go to Allison Janney in I, Tonya. Janney’s is the flashier turn, but Metcalf’s is the bigger achievement. Ronan is good but Frances McDormand is great in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri.

The mother daughter conflict at the movie’s heart is powerfully and persuasively done. It seems painfully real. The hurt the two characters feel and experience is palpable and real. It is mostly very subtly written, achieved and performed.

The rest of the film less so. Sacramento Catholic high school senior Christine MacPherson is a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and a misfit. She insists on being called Lady Bird, mainly it seems to frustrate and infuriate her mother.

She also frustrates and infuriates her school principal Sister Sarah Joan (Lois Smith), who takes a bemused and tolerant attitude to her, advising her she might like the drama class, where she joins the high school musical Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, and meets a cute, charming boy Danny O’Neill (Lucas Hedges). It doesn’t seem to occur to Ms Bird that the high school musical is not the best place to meet straight boys.

[Spoiler alert] Ms Bird must be very naive. No warning bells ring when Danny refuses too touch her breasts at night under the stars because he respects her too much. Later, she uses the men’s loos at school and catches Danny snogging another boot in the lockups. The boys are snogging in the men’s loos without locking the door. Hardly credible is it? 

Anyway Ms Bird reacts strongly and angrily and won’t see him. There’s a little later scene when he tearfully asks her not to tell anyone he’s gay, and she won’t, but Danny is toast. Hedges’s performance suddenly ends. The film’s just all about Lady Bird. (Well, that is the name on the tin.)

Luckily she’s clocked school band hunk Kyle Scheible (Timothée Chalamet) a bit earlier, and approaches him at one of the tables she waitresses. Soon they’re bonking and she loses her virginity, thinking Kyle does too, but he arrogantly reveals he’s had a few countless others. He’s still willing to take her to the prom, but he’s a chauvinist pig. Interestingly. Chalamet, Oscar nominee for Call Me by Your Name, can do nothing with this role at all. It is a chilly cypher.

Luckily Ms Bird has a best friend, a sweet and lovey fat friend called Julie (Beanie Feldstein), who she’s previously dumped in favour of a pretty rich one, Jenna (Odeya Rush). Bird dumps Kyle on prom night in favour of a forgiving Julie and they’re their girly dates.

There’s one other important male character – Bird’s dad, a pathetic creature, who has been in a 20-year depression and now loses his job too. He’s played, engagingly, and rather subtly, by the excellent Tracy Letts. Dad knows all, including of course how to handle his wife and daughter. But dad is still an appalling loser. When he goes for a job, he bumps into his own adoptive son on the way out of the interview, going for the same job. Hardly credible is it?

However, despite its faults, it is still powerful, haunting, memorable material, with some tremendous scenes, characters and performances. If the characters are sometimes abrasive, misguided and annoying, including the heroine, then so are real people. Lady Bird is quite classy Some wins on Oscar night can be expected.

Maybe Gerwig could tell Danny O’Neill’s story next time, or even Kyle Scheible’s. Maybe the boys could get together in a Call Me by Your Name kind of way.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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