Lady Bird

[zico]

6.5/10. Subtle coming-of-age drama unusual in that the central character is female. Stars Siorse Ronan.

The heart of this film is about the mother-daughter relationship, where they love each other, but make it hard for each other. It's centred around the self-named "Lady Bird" from a poor family with big dreams about being special who is in her last year of school (a Catholic school, which has scope for a few laughs). "Lady Bird" is meant to be aged about 18, but is played by Siorse Ronan, which makes her the oldest (and least convincing) high-school student since John Travolta in "Grease". She was good as a young woman in "Brooklyn", but 5 or so years later, she's now playing a schoolkid, which is just odd.

It's a reasonably serious steady drama, with a few lighter bits which are mildly amusing, rather than laugh-out-loud. It reminded me a little of "Downsizing" as the characters are often put into unlikely situations because the film-maker wants to make particular points. There are quite a few bits of interest here, such as the class-system in USA. The character of "Lady Bird" isn't particularly likeable at times, but it's about someone making steps (and mis-steps) towards adulthood and maturity, and is a character you can empathise with (though I felt sorrier for her parents!). As a bloke, I found it interesting to see those difficult teenage years from the female perspective.

Mrs. Zico thought it was really good at portraying the difficult relationship dynamics between mother and teenage daughter, and thought these scenes rang true. Just a shame they didn't cast a genuine teen actor for the main role. It's all about the character here, and the direction is really nothing special at all. I'm pretty surprised the director (Greta Gerwig) got an Oscar nomination for this effort.

For me, it dragged a little towards the end (despite being only 95 mins running time), but I was reasonably engaged and interested throughout.