Lady Bird
5 stars
Director: Greta Gerwig
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts
Duration: 94 mins
Class: 12
KRS Releasing Ltd

The line-up for this year’s Academy Award nominees for Best Actress in a Leading Role is particularly strong, blessed with a quintet of actresses who have created fascinating and complex characters of different stripes.

As I’ve already intimated, Frances McDormand should walk off with the award this evening for her superlative role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Yet, it must be said that each of her co-nominees would be a deserved winner, not least Saoirse Ronan as a frustrated adolescent in Lady Bird.

Ronan walks into the ceremony tonight with her third nomination in her relatively short career. But, this is an actress who, from the moment she came to audiences’ attention in 2007’s Atonement (she was aged just 13), has taken on a remarkable array of roles with consummate ease and the confidence of actors twice her age.

Ronan is the titular Lady Bird. She is born Christine McPherson, yet she gives herself the name Lady Bird: “I gave it to myself, it’s given to me, by me”, she states imperiously at auditions for the school play. While this self-naming may hint at precociousness, Lady Bird is only trying to establish her own identity as she nears the end of High School and is on the brink of young adulthood and looming college life.

It is a delight to watch them both at work, both bringing nothing but realism in their moments of joy and sadness

Lady Bird is frustrated with the limited opportunities her hometown of Sacramento, California can offer her. She is a dreamer and hopes to be able to go to college on the East Coast.

This looks impossible given her father (Tracy Letts, perfectly embodying quiet desperation) has just lost his job. Although her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf) works double shifts to make ends meet, funds are a little tight. That Marion believes Lady Bird hasn’t got what it takes to live and study away from home only cements her determination even further.

To describe Lady Bird as merely a coming-of-age story featuring a teenager trying to find her place in the world would be doing the film a great disservice. For writer and freshman director Greta Gerwig breaks the mould and rebuilds it, eschewing many of the tropes of the genre while getting under the skin of her protagonist in a light, funny, yet wholly authentic way. Thankfully, unlike most films of this ilk, Lady Bird is not defined by her relationships with boys. Although two guys do make an impact on her life – the sweet sensitive Danny, played by Lucas Hedges; and the cool, charismatic Kyle, played by Timothée Chalamet of whom no one had heard of six months ago and now seems to be everywhere – there is little doubt they only form one part of her journey.

The most powerful and influential relationships Lady Bird has are with her best friend Julie (the lovely and lovable Beanie Feldstein), and with her mother, the harried Marion. It is here the film really shines, throwing a spotlight on a relationship that is so often complicated, and one that female audiences will find completely relatable.

Ronan shares exquisite chemistry with Metcalf. They spar like professional boxers, each landing some pretty hefty emotional punches along the way, as they experience the mundane moments of life, such as when Marion complains about the use of too many towels. There are those which unwittingly hurt, such as Lady Bird saying some pretty horrible things to her mother.

Marion finds it hard to truly express her desire to protect her daughter and prepare her for the harsh realities of the world away from the safety of home.

It is a delight to watch them both at work, both bringing nothing but realism in their moments of joy, laughter, and sadness – and some high drama, as when Lady Bird throws herself out of a moving car in frustration. And, while Ronan is the true protagonist, Metcalf (deservedly nominated for Actress in a Supporting Role) will inch her way into the viewer’s heart with her understated, yet utterly compelling, performance.