By Jason Solomons
Of all the films in awards contention this year, Lady Bird has given me the most pause for thought. I’ve had to watch it three times to let its subtleties seep in and I think that it really might win the Oscar for Best Picture. It’s certainly worth a flutter between now and 4 March.
Why it’s puzzled me so much, I’m still not sure. On the outside, it’s a sweet coming-of-age film, about a 17-year-old in her final year of Catholic high school in Sacramento, California. An ordinary girl in an ordinary town, right? And it’s an ordinary high school movie: college applications, best friends, cliques, drama group, parties (Americans have such big houses), first sexual encounters, arguments with Mum and, of course, prom night.
But it’s within the confines of this ordinariness that the beauty of Lady Bird – both the film and the character played so winningly by Ireland’s Saorsie Ronan - shine through. Written and directed by Greta Gerwig (only the fifth woman to ever receive an Oscar nomination for directing), it has a personal touch that builds to something that feels a lot like love. As one of the nuns at Sacred Heart says: ‘Aren’t they the same thing, love and paying attention?’
Gerwig, whose kooky acting style and mumbly film choices I’ve not always loved, might just carry off a huge surprise on Oscar night in what is a special year for female voices. After all, this tells a familiar film tale but with the neatest yet hugest of adjustments: to the female perspective. Ultimately, it’s about a daughter and her mother (the excellent Laurie Metcalfe – remember her, from Roseanne?) as much as anything else and the pair of them together are wonderful.
They argue and bicker, and Mum snips away with her passive aggressive comments – ‘Is it maybe too pink?’ – until you want to scream. But there is such love in this relationship, I just welled up. Think of all the unsaid stuff, and it breaks your heart.
It’s all about non-communication, about connections and finding a spot you’re comfortable with. It resembles Gerwig’s film, Frances Ha, particularly in its final scenes. But it’s a far simpler, far more likeable film, whose charm accrues in details and observations – of clothes, fashion, music cues (Alanis Morissette’s Hand in My Pocket, Justin Timberlake’s Cry Me a River) – until it feels like everyone’s teenage years somehow, even mine, and I grew up in Stanmore.
It’s a very smart, very precise film, and really very funny in parts – the drama teacher who has a breakdown and is replaced by the sports coach is just brilliant, and must be from a true story. In fact, that’s why it works. It just feels very true, in the remarkable performance of Saorsie Ronan, particularly when she and Metcalfe are arguing over picking out a dress, or a college, or anything, really, and in the direction which is admirably tight.
Perhaps most importantly, it’s a film about hope, growth and dreams and not being defined by your high school and family. As she insists: ‘Lady Bird is my given name – it was given to me... by me.’ Its very ordinariness is what makes it so extraordinary, especially now it's up for Best Picture. In a year of nothing special and a year of rebalancing so female voices are heard and fresh viewpoints seen, the small and perfectly formed Lady Bird is in exactly the right place at the right time. And I love it.
