Film Review: Lady Bird

It's gotten rave reviews left, right and centre – and now Lady Bird lands on Australian shores.

The directorial debut of Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird centres on a 17-year-old senior called Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) who yearns to leave the sleepy streets of Sacramento behind, butting heads with her mother (Laurie Metcalf) as she flits between boyfriends, applies to colleges and struggles to come to terms with who she is and wants to be.

On the surface Lady Bird might sound like a superficial or generic coming-of-age drama; the romance, the angst and the themes will feel familiar to audiences who have watched anything from The Breakfast Club to Mean Girls or The Perks of Being a Wallflower. This familiarity shouldn't be counted as a negative though; even though Gerwig's screenplay hits all the same beats, it's still a deeply personal film that feels distinct and unique in its own right. A love letter to Sacramento, a tribute to struggling parents everywhere and a rose-tinted glimpse at graduating school and flying the coop, Gerwig's film feels almost autobiographical in how authentic and down-to-earth it is.

All of the characters – from sulky Lady Bird and frayed mother Marion to pensive father Larry (Tracy Letts) and pudgy best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein) feel like real people who just strolled onto set and started talking. The writing and performances really lend Lady Bird an aura of authenticity, endearing us to them even when we can see that Lady Bird is being a bit entitled or her mother overbearing.

I found Lady Bird to be a perfectly pleasant coming-of-age film with moments of profound poignancy. It's an impressively helmed debut in that it knows the story it wants to tell and carefully curates a timeline of moments that act as flashpoints in its protagonist's eventful and defining year. It keeps things brisk and ends at the right moment, leaving us with a warm glow in our hearts long after the credits have rolled.

The Verdict: 8/10

As directorial debuts go, Lady Bird is up there with some of the best. Gerwig's screenplay and work behind the camera are impressive whilst a cast of brilliant character actors all bring their A-game.

Lady Bird is in cinemas across Australia from February 15.