“Lady Bird” (2017) is a coming-of-age dramedy set in Sacramento, California, during the early 2000s. Written and directed by Greta Gerwig in her solo directorial debut, the film centers on the final year of high school for Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), a spirited and headstrong teenager who yearns for more than her middle-class, Catholic school upbringing offers.
Christine insists on being called “Lady Bird,” a name she gave herself to express her individuality and desire for reinvention. She dreams of attending a prestigious East Coast college, away from what she sees as Sacramento’s cultural and emotional limitations. Her biggest emotional struggle is with her mother, Marion McPherson (Laurie Metcalf), a hard-working nurse who loves her daughter deeply but often expresses it through criticism and concern over finances. Their relationship is complex, marked by clashes, affection, and deep undercurrents of misunderstanding.
Lady Bird navigates friendship, first love, and identity during her senior year. Her best friend is the sweet and loyal Julie (Beanie Feldstein), but Lady Bird temporarily drifts away from her in pursuit of popularity. She dates Danny (Lucas Hedges), a kind but closeted classmate from her school’s drama program, and later becomes involved with the aloof and nihilistic Kyle (Timothée Chalamet), who embodies the pretentious hipster rebellion she thinks she wants.
As the school year unfolds, Lady Bird’s journey involves disappointments, revelations, and small but significant acts of maturity. Her relationship with her father, Larry (Tracy Letts), who struggles with depression and unemployment, provides emotional warmth and contrast to the tension she shares with her mother. The film’s emotional core rests on the mother-daughter dynamic—both fiercely stubborn and fiercely loving, but unable to fully articulate that love.
By the end of the film, Lady Bird is accepted to a college in New York City (albeit under a financial-aid program), and she leaves home for the first time. In New York, she drops the name “Lady Bird,” going by Christine again. After a difficult start and a night of drinking, she finds herself yearning for her family and her hometown. She leaves a heartfelt voicemail for her mother, expressing appreciation and love in a way she never could face-to-face.
“Lady Bird” is personal, semi-autobiographical, and emotionally resonant. It is universally relatable and captures the bittersweet nature of adolescence, the search for identity, and the complexity of parent-child relationships. It is laced with humor, pathos, and tenderness, grounded by nuanced performances, particularly from Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf, who received Academy Award nominations for their respective roles.
The Other Cinema 