Lady Bird December 14,
2017
This movie is annoying, but it grows on you. Why is it
annoying? It is about the coming of age a 17 year old teenage girl who hates
where she lives and has a tumultuous love/not like relationship with her mother.
Her desire is to leave Sacramento and go to an East coast collage which would
put a strain on the family’s precarious finances. She is also on the verge of
sexual adventures, which pose their own perils. Parents of a daughter can
relate, parents of a son have their own problems.
Instead of using her name she calls herself Lady Bird (a.k.a.
Christine) Why? Like her pink hair she wants to stand out and call attention to
herself (given the limited number of brain cells of a teenager I bet she never
heard of Lady Bird Johnson). Her choice of boyfriends is problematic. In her rush
to experience life she loses her virginity to a teenage boy who claims to be a
virgin but is not. His prior experience does not spare from performance anxiety
to the crestfallen Lady Bird. Dissatisfied
with her family’s circumstances (they literally live on the wrong side of the
tracks) she pretends to live in a wealthy home of an ex-boyfriend. She abandons close friends for flashy but
false new ones.
Saoirse Ronan skillfully juggles these emotions. On the
surface she is obnoxious and hallow but through conflict and experience becomes
tolerable and even nice. Compared to her performance in Brooklyn, as a shy responsible young woman, this role is the exact
opposite and is a testament to Ronan acting range. She is not my favorite character,
but I appreciate her acting.
Laurie Metcalf plays the domineering long-suffering mother.
She is fabulous in the role. Besides her contentious relationship with her daughter
she bears the weigh of her family being the only one working parent and her laid
off husband is battling depression. Her rubbery face is imprinted with her burdens.
Despite clashes with her daughter they love each other even if it is not
apparent.
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