Growing up is difficult. It's painful and weird and wonderful all at the same time. Greta Gerwig's solo directorial debut Lady Bird offers a breathtakingly beautiful glimpse of a teenage girl growing up in a small town like Sacramento, California. Lady Bird boasts of an amazing ensemble cast and the movie earned 5 Academy Award Nominations. Some of the cast members also appear in Greta Gerwig's latest movie Little Women. This semi-autobiographical movie plays out with all the nostalgia of the early 2000s.
Saoirse Ronan plays Lady Bird perfectly capturing all the idiosyncrasies peculiar yet also common to precocious young adults. The other teenagers also have well-defined character arcs and their different dreams, ambitions and stories are shown wonderfully. Here are 10 ways in which Lady Bird was exactly able to capture the highs and lows of growing up.
Wanting To Leave Your Small Town
Most teenagers who lived in small towns have this dream, a yearning to move to the big city. The displeasure of living in a small town for a young adult is portrayed well in this movie. The desire to go to college away from home, away from everything they've known is very well shown. Lady Bird keeps talking about wanting to not go to UC Davis, a college that is still very close to where she lives. She wants to go to the East Coast, to New York. She is willing to work hard to ensure that she is able to get in to a college in a bigger city. She wants to make it and it is almost universal a feeling amongst teenagers.
The Heartbreaks
Over her senior year at school, Lady Bird gets her heartbroken not once, but twice. On both occasions, we see her enthusiasm about love and the disappointment that follows. She seeks romance like most young adults her age. And like most young adults her age, her romances are short lived.
The two boys that Lady Bird gets involved with are distinctly different. Her first relationship is almost like puppy love that abruptly ends when Lady Bird walks in on the boy kissing another boy. The second relationship is with the toxic hipster, played by the much loved Timothée Chalamet. And in her eagerness to grow up and act matured, she realizes that she loses out on experiences that she wanted to experience in a different way.
Growing Up Poor Amongst Mostly Rich People
Lady Bird talks about how she is from the wrong side of the tracks. Most of the popular kids in her school live in the "better" part of town. They are rich and they live in fancy houses and experience life in a manner that is very different from what Lady Bird does. Her parents are struggling and her choices are limited. She doesn't seem ungrateful about it, but the difficulty she finds in fitting in, and wanting to fit in with the rich, popular kids is clear. It is especially clear when she doesn't tell Jenna where her house actually is.
A Parent Who Believes In Her
There's always an English Teacher, a Mother, or a Father, or an Uncle or Aunt, who is willing to take a chance on the teenager who thinks they have no one on their side. Lady Bird has a strong supporter in her as her father. While she slowly realizes her mother's love, it is her father who is willing to work out her financial aid documents for her, who encourages her to apply to her dream schools. Her mother understands her, but it is her father who allows her to test out her dreams for herself. He forms a bridge between the mother and daughter as well.
Her 18th Birthday Celebration
Lady Bird marks the occasion of her 18th birthday by buying herself a bunch of things, including a pack of cigarettes and a Playgirl, that she is now legally allowed to buy. The scene with her standing outside the shop, smoking a cigarette while checking out the Playgirl magazine is iconic.
It captures the zeitgeist of quiet rebellion, of the urgency to grow up. She is in a hurry to be a grown up and this celebration by herself is able to portray it beautifully.
Falling Out And Then Reconciling With The Best Friend
Lady Bird has a falling out with her best friend Jules when she tries to ignore her in attempts to become friends with the more popular kids. Lady Bird takes her friend for granted and in the process of being included in the popular group, she loses out on a friend who always had her back. But the beauty of being a teenager is that, there is always the possibility of forgiving and forgetting. Pride and ego are not as important when they're growing up and they are willing to completely put it aside to apologize and forgive.
The Actors And Their Face Devoid Of Excessive Makeup
The makers of this movie tried to make it as realistic as possible and this included not using excessive makeup or makeup at all to cover up their actors, especially the ones acting as the teenagers. In certain shots, Saoirse Ronan's acne is very visible and this is a very positive way to showcase teenagers, as bodies with flaws. When young adults watch this film, they are able to see faces and bodies that look like them on the screen. It makes them look real and accessible to viewers.
The Constant Fights With Your Mother
There are poignant moments in this movie that show mother-daughter relationships at its finest. There is also the constant bickering that will make every teenage girl smirk to herself. It's honest, it's real, and barely exaggerated. The inability to understand that one can be better, and constantly being told the same is something every teenager experiences.
The lives they lead as teenagers wherein one places his or herself in the center of the story sometimes is very hard for the adults in the house to digest and this is shown remarkably in this move.
The Different Types Of Sadness
Lady Bird tries to show different versions of sadness. It doesn't emphasize and reduce down any version, allowing all the different versions to be equally acceptable. Lady Bird says "Different things can be sad. It's not all war."
Her father has been battling depression for years. Father Leviatch too seems to be dealing with difficulties of his own. Jules in her own quiet way shows us how Lady Bird sidelines her when she's too busy in her own world. Everyone is going through something, and everyone is experiencing something we don't know and Lady Bird captures it all.
What It Actually Means To Leave
There is a huge difference between the dream one has of moving to the big city, and the actual experience of it. Lady Bird doesn't roll credits with her having moved away. It goes a step ahead to show the pain of separation, the pain of moving away, the pain of being somewhere totally different. Lady Bird having moved to New York for college comes to realize what it actually means to grow up. It's not as pretty as she thought it would be. And that's an important moment in this movie and in the life of the young adult. That moment when one actually does grow up and wishes they hadn't.