Movie Review: "Lady Bird"

"Lady Bird": B+.  In our circle of friends there are many who attend movies on a regular basis.  We usually compare notes when we get together.  More than any other film of recent vintage, Lady Bird not only has been seen by many of these folks, but has drawn universal acclaim.  I can appreciate their point of view, and don't try to talk them out of it.  But my take is that it is one of those films for which the whole is a little less than the sum of its parts; still, a very good movie.

Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) is a senior in a Catholic high school who is not afraid to (sometimes) unilaterally change things about her life she doesn't like.  Examples.  She wants to be known as Lady Bird, which she calls her given name because "I gave it to myself."  She hates her home town, Sacramento, and does not want to be relegated to attending nearby UC-Davis for college.  No culture there, she claims. Instead, she applies only to East Coast schools even though her parents are experiencing financial distress.  When her audition for the school play fails, she writes in her own name on the bulletin board list of those students who passed.  In order to impress popular classmate Jenna (Odeya Rush), she tells Jenna a beautiful house in the swanky part of town is hers, when in fact it belongs to her ex-boyfriend's grandmother.  In reality, the McPhersons' modest house is literally on the wrong side of the tracks.  She also stretches the truth about the coziness of her relationship with a drifty boy band member, Kyle (Timothee Chalet).

The film takes us through, and a little past, Lady Bird's senior year.  Writer-director Greta Gerwig populates the story with several interesting characters who interact with the protagonist.  The two male contemporaries in her life, first love Danny (Lucas Hodges) and the aforementioned Kyle, impact her emotionally.  Her father, Larry (Tracy Letts), is a rock, the strongest support in Lady Bird's life, notwithstanding mental health issues tied to his employment situation.  Of course every coming-of-age movie's leading person needs a "bestie," someone whose friendship is often taken for granted but who nevertheless comes through when the chips are down.  That role, Julie, is ably filled by Beanie Feldstein.

Where Gerwig's script crafting really shines is in the several scenes shared by Lady Bird and her mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf).  Two moments especially stand out, one during a car ride and the other in a clothing store where Lady Bird is trying on prom dresses.  In both instances the two talented actresses segue from cordial dialogue to comical bitter arguments in the blink of an eye.  This is a tremendous mixture of expert writing, directing and acting.  If I were watching this on a TV, I would rewind both segments ad infinitum and admire their collective work.

There are many other humorous moments interspersed throughout, including Lady Bird and Julie snacking on unconsecrated communion wafers, a college advisor who can't control her laughter when Lady Bird, an average student, informs her that her dream school is the Ivy League's Columbia University, and a substitute drama coach who, due to his background as the football coach, diagrams the stage positioning of his student actors as if they were on the gridiron.  We also are treated to Lady Bird's lethargic brother Miguel (Jordan Rodrigues) and his multi-pierced live-in girlfriend Shelly (Marielle Scott).

One pleasant surprise is the way Gerwig uses the Catholic school setting, which comes into play a handful of times.  Too many writers, especially comedic ones, make fun of "anything Catholic" as a source of cheap laughs.  To them the Church and its traditions are low hanging fruit.  In Lady Bird I did not find this to be the case.  In fact, two of the most hip adults who come into Lady Bird's life are school principal Sister Sarah Joan (Lois Smith) and regular drama coach Father Leviatch (Stephen McKinley Henderson).

The two weakest parts of the story are those involving Prom Night -- too cliche -- and the very last scene -- too pat an ending.  It is hard for me to give a grade above a B+ to a movie with a pat ending, so B+ it is; to borrow a phrase from Billboard Magazine, maybe "with a bullet."