Lady Bird

Greta Gerwig's Film About Growing Up

So, I’m sitting here at summer school very cold and very bored. You might be asking why I’m not teaching in summer school? You don’t teach in summer school anymore. You monitor the room while students do a self-paced online class and you’re there to unlock quizzes and answer any questions. It’s pretty mundane, but the money is good and when you’re an adult, you unfortunately have to do things just for the money. A girl asked me for a pair of scissors, which I have no idea why she needs them because she’s doing her work online and the last time I checked scissors aren’t necessary on the world wide web.

Alright, enough about my mundane morning. I’m hoping to write some more content connected to movies throughout the summer. Last week was one of the best weeks of my professional life and I have an idea for writing about it, but I want to wait till I’m in the right space to focus and make it really good. This morning, I want to write about the 2017 movie, Lady Bird. My wife, sister-in-law, and I watched it a couple nights ago. Lady Bird is one of the best coming-of-age movies of the 21st Century and I hope you watch it after reading this. It was nominated for five Oscars: Best Film, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.

The Synopsis

Lady Bird is about a high school senior named Christine, except she doesn’t want you to call her Christine. Her name is Lady Bird. Lady Bird, played by Saoirse Ronan, insists that you call her by her chosen name. My first year of teaching, I had a student whose nickname was Butter. Butter was a trip. Quintessential class clown. Lady Bird’s senior year is about figuring out life and establishing her identity as she approaches adulthood.

She attends a wealthy Catholic High School, though her family struggles financially. She often feels like an outcast because of this. Her relationship with her mom is very strained. And she dreams of getting out of Sacramento and moving to the East Coast. She’s a typical teenager. Lady Bird has her best friend, but wants to find ways to fit in with the crowd. She’s a little selfish, but you see why she wants to get away. Here’s the opening scene that really sets the stage for the entire movie.

Heartbreak

It feels like heartbreak is mandatory to the high school experience. Two people meet, they fall in love but it’s not really love because they’re teenagers and they’re too immature to realize the gravity of relationships, and eventually they break up and the world falls apart around them…..but really things end up being okay as they grow up and learn. Or in Teenage Josh’s case, I was too nerdy to have anyone date me but I had my crushes who “broke” my heart. God, I was so dumb. Being a teenager is stupid, but kinda fun at the same time. So, the scene below…..

Lady Bird and her best friend, Julie, join Drama. They act in the musical and become part of that school community. Lady Bird meets a boy, Danny, and they fall in “love” and Julie has a crush on her Math teacher. Lady Bird catches Danny cheating on her with a boy and Julie realizes that her Math teacher is happily married with a child on the way. Their crushing heartbreak leads to their tears, but our laughter as Dave Matthews sings “Crash Into Me", an amazing song that I’ll put on repeat every now and again but I’ve never cried while listening.

*Eventually Lady Bird and Danny’s relationship is mended as friends. It’s a very powerful scene that reminds you of the struggles of being gay in the early 2000s. I’m glad that we live in a more accepting society today.

Timothay

I can’t remember how much I sang Timothee Chalamet’s praises when I wrote about Dune Part 2, but my wife and I (but mostly me) are obsessed with our beloved Timothay. We even talked about building a shrine to him in our house. Chalamet plays Kyle, a nihilistic and pro-anarchy wannabe rock star that reads Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. The only reason he goes to this wealthy prep school is because his dad wants him to go to Xavier and I’m sure his personality is mostly a rebellious streak against familial expectations. He’s kind of a jerk, but definitely the perfect match for Lady Bird as she enters a phase of her own anarchic streak.

*Going back to proofreading this and I realize that this section was pretty pointless. I just wanted to write about my love of Timothee Chalamet. Oh well, I guess the pointlessness is perfect for the nihilistic character of Kyle…

The Parents

Lady Bird’s relationship with her parents could not be more different from each other. While her dad is very kind, but very much to the side in the story, the movie really centers on the tense relationship with her mom. This scene here really cuts to the heart. While shopping for a prom dress, Lady Bird tells her mom, “I wish you liked me.” Her mom, played by Laurie Metcalf, stumbles on her words in struggling to reassure her daughter. It’s a frustrating dynamic. Mom just wants to take care of her family. She is afraid and stressed because of their financial situation. She has a big heart, but is very blunt in what she says. Lady Bird just wants to be herself and find acceptance. Unfortunately, this leads to her being very selfish at times. The two women frequently butt heads and you can see how they hurt each other.

Unfortunately, I can’t find very many scenes with the dad on YouTube. He is kind, calm, and collected. He is there for his daughter and really takes the hurt and struggles from life in stride. Remember when I said that Lady Bird wanted to leave Sacramento and go to school on the East Coast? Her dad helps her get there. He is the glue that holds the family together and helps both women to see on the other side of their negative emotions towards each other. The hug at the end of this scene says it all.

The Ending

Spoiler warning if you have not seen the film…..

Lady Bird ends with Christine in New York. Just like her mom realized how much she’ll miss her daughter when she dropped her off at the airport, Christine realizes that maybe things at home weren’t so bad. I’ll let the ending take it away…