Lady Bird

Lady Bird stars Saoirse Ronan as Christine McPherson (who only answers to the name Lady Bird) as she struggles in her senior year at a Catholic School to find a way out of Sacramento, California. Her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf) works hard as a nurse to give her keep her family afloat and give her daughter a future. She struggles to maintain a relationship with her daughter, who doesn't want to do what her mother wants and go to a nearby affordable college, but instead go to the opposite side of the country to get away from the ordinary life in Sacramento. Even though her mother struggles to give her what little her family has, Lady Bird wants more from her life. She wants to be seen as someone with wealth and be someone popular.

I really enjoyed this film, it actually reminded me a lot of one of my favorite films of last year "Edge of Seventeen". The characters in both films seem to go through the same things, but handle it completely differently. Lady Bird is the kind of High School girl who does care what the popular kids think, but never shows any signs of weakness around them. She's much more confident and knows how to talk to people on their level. The film still does a good job at making all the situations she's in relatable to anyone that went through high school. Finding a college you want to go to and actually getting in, having a crush on someone and getting your heart broken, not appreciating the work your parents do for you and trying desperately to be one of the "cool" kids. The writing works very well to make all the characters feel real enough in this fictional work that you can sympathize with their struggles, but also absurd enough that you can laugh at the strange situations they get into and weird things they say.

The film does a good job at presenting Sacramento as a town with a lot of charm, but also shows you enough that you would understand why Lady Bird would want to leave the town. It's a nice film to look at and the cinematography is really good. It's easy to understand leaving a very suburban place like Sacramento to want to go to a big city like New York with the big buildings and busy streets full of life and opportunity. Sacramento just might not be big enough for someone with as much character as Lady Bird. Lady Bird is funny and quirky and it shows through the dialog and her actions as well. She's a very memorable character and she makes the films worth watching. Not to take away from all the supporting characters, because they bring in lots of laughs and charm too. Even with all the laughs, there are still emotional moments between the characters that will bring you even closer to the story.

This film was actor Greta Gerwig's directorial debut and it was a very good start to her new career as a director, if she continues to do it. This film actually broke records on the film review site Rotten Tomatoes and is still standing at a 100% score, which is almost unheard of these days. No, this isn't one of the greatest films of all time, but it's a very good film that tackles commonly done subjects in a new and interesting way with characters that will stick with you after you finish watching. For sure it's one of the best of 2017.

Overall Grade: B+