Have You Seen Ladybird?
I got around to watching a movie from a year ago, Ladybird. I had heard it was a good movie and I like the young star Saoirse Ronan as an actress, but I have to say I wasn't prepared for how good this movie really was.
A mere 93 minutes long, the film breezes through the senior year in high school of a Sacramento California teenager named Christine, who calls herself Ladybird because she thinks it is crazy to use a name someone else gave you. The movie shows Ladybird the girl as bright, impetuous, rebellious, curious, caring, selfish, in other words a typical teenager with maybe a little more inner longing for something "more" than most kids express.
The thing that made Ladybird stand out to me was it's almost unerring observations of human nature. Every character stands out as someone with their own wants and needs and unique traits, and perhaps most surprisingly, a co-ed Catholic high school environment is treated with admirable affection. The nuns and priests, the teachers, are only mildly mocked, and the experience of a religious school education is shown with some dignity and affection.
The centerpiece of the film is Ladybird's relationship with her mother. The family is described as lower working class, although they really don't appear to be that poor. Ladybird has some social climbing aspects to her, and her mother is defensive about their financial status. The mother is strict, but not really, and the tension between mother and daughter always seem to hinge on the way they cannot quite emotionally connect with one another. The acting in these scenes is excellent.
Ladybird was made by a relatively unknown writer/director Greta Gerwig. After this I think she probably has an extremely bright future making movies.
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