Lady Bird (2017)

Directed by Greta Gerwig · Comedy, Drama

Starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, Lois Smith, Stephen Henderson, Odeya Rush, Jordan Rodrigues, Marielle Scott, Jake McDorman, John Karna, Bayne Gibby, Laura Marano, Marietta DePrima, Daniel Zovatto, Kristen Cloke, Andy Buckley, Paul Keller, Kathryn Newton, Myra Turley, Bob Stephenson, Abhimanyu Katyal, Chris Witaske, Ben Konigsberg, Gurpreet Gill, Richard Jin Namkung, Joan Patricia O'Neil, Robert Figueroa, Carla Valentine, Roman Arabia, Monique Edwards, Matthew Maher, Anita Kalathara, Debra Miller, Georgia Leva, Derek Butler, London Thor, Shaelan O'Connor, Christina Offley, Sabrina Schloss, Connor Mickiewicz, Erik Daniells, Cynthia Cales, Giselle Grams, Ithamar Enriquez, Luisa Lee, Danielle Macdonald, Adam Brock, Bonnie Jean Shelton, Rebecca Light, Janet Song

IHBM5Average

A California high school student plans to escape from her family and small town by going to college in New York.

My review · Reviewed 02/24/2018

Oh boy, where to start with this one. Based on the glowing reviews (allegedly the highest-rated film of all time on Rotten Tomatoes) I was really looking forward to this one. Maybe the heightened expectations coupled with watching the amazing Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri raised the bar to an unfair level but I don't think that is true. I think the film suffered from a bit of the coffee shop effect. Here we have a coming-of-age story and a struggle between mother and daughter so in that sense it is something that we can all relate to. The pluses:

The performances (especially Ronan and Metcalf) are excellent.
At times the movie zigs when you thought it would zag. It did an excellent job of showing how we all struggle with different things in our lives.

The minuses: I don't know if this was even the best coming-of-age story that I've seen this month. I admit to being partial to this genre and I think that I completely forgot about the film five minutes after it was done (maybe ten minutes after I got done stewing over how disappointed I was about the film). There was nothing new here and what was there was not all that compelling. It very much felt like someone mixed 1/4 part Heathers with 3/4 part After-school special.

overrated, coming of age