Can’t do anything, want everything: this is the conflict zone in which 17-year-old protagonist Christine McPherson finds herself. She adopts the pseudonym ‘Lady Bird’ because she wants to go ‘where culture is.’ Even though she is still at school and neither her grades nor her parents’ budget are sufficient, she is determined to get out of Sacramento, no matter what – to Yale, Harvard, or at least to New York. Right from the start of the film, her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf) points out this contradiction on a car journey with her daughter and because this isn’t what Lady Bird wants to hear, she jumps out of the moving car.
From the very first shot, Lady Bird, directed by Greta Gerwig, tells this hilarious and poignant tale of the closeness and tension between a headstrong daughter and her equally headstrong mother.
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With the ongoing debate about female perspectives in the film industry, Lady Bird is a courageous and unorthodox coming-of-age story which delights audiences with its fallible, independent female characters while taking a close look at social class differences. But there is much more to enjoy in this film: the witty dialogues, the calm, sauntering narrative style, the attention to detail and the ostentatious lack of drama and pathos.