Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

[Idioteque Stalker]

https://a.ltrbxd.com/resized/film-poster/3/2/6/2/7/9/326279-lady-bird-0-230-0-345-crop.jpg?k=89809e9ba0

IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4925292/)

[Idioteque Stalker]

This was great. Funny, moving, and true. A crowd-pleaser in every good sense of the phrase. The obvious highlights are any mother-daughter scenes--as the youngest of three who constantly observed my two older sisters interact with our mother, this movie just nails the never-ending push and pull of argumentative teenager and overbearing mother (the "love = attention" bit was thematically on-the-nose but still resonated for me).

I love Frances Ha, but this feels like the most perfect Greta Gerwig-y movie to date. There are some intentionally awkward scenes, but the editing is surprisingly snappy, especially in the first half, so the film doesn't make us wallow in the characters' discomfort. Likewise, the dialogue at points may be a bit too clever, but the acting is so exceptional that I didn't mind. Does it even need to be said at this point that Saoirse Ronan is great? Lucas Hedges and Timothee Chalamet are fairly one-note but also provide their own highlights (Hedges' crying scene is long but I didn't mind at all). The real standout here is Laurie Metcalf. Great casting, fantastic performance--I'll be rooting for her Oscar night.

I know it's kind of the point, but Tracy Letts simply can't hold his own amidst this cast. And the ending felt a little soft to me. Regardless, I came away from this movie pumping my fists. As a side note, I feel it is our duty as cinephiles to ostracize any person who makes a Juno comparison.

[transmogrifier]

[QUOTE=Idioteque Stalker;579408]A crowd-pleaser in every good sense of the phrase./QUOTE]

To be fair, there’s only, like, two senses in that phrase.

[Idioteque Stalker]

To be fair, there’s only, like, two senses in that phrase.

It's a crowd-pleaser in both good senses of the phrase.

[Henry Gale]

Yeah this is kinda the best. One of the most beautifully observed movies I've seen in a long time. It knows exactly which moments to choose, however fleeting, that speak volumes to every character and situations. It rarely falls into outright montage, but it moves so seamlessly, packing so much into it without feeling rushed or with you feeling a sense of losing the characters, or them getting ahead of you. As IdioStalker said above, the snappy way it's edited makes its 93 minutes somehow feel like it packs every full school day and holiday it glances, missing nothing.

And all this love is coming from someone who found Frances Ha mildly insufferable! (and is still confused by why/how since, as a big fan of Baumbach and Gerwig almost entirely otherwise)

[Mal]

Absolutely fabulous, endearing movie. I loved the whole cast and its somehow new, fresh take on coming of age/high school matters.
I can't wait to double-feature it at home with Mistress America.

and yes I disliked Frances Ha.

[baby doll]

This was nice.

[Spinal]

It's kind of mind boggling that a 2-time Academy Award nominee is still convincingly playing a high schooler. Saoirse Ronan is a treasure. Metcalf is excellent. And Greta Gerwig's script is endearing and very funny.

[baby doll]

It's kind of mind boggling that a 2-time Academy Award nominee is still convincingly playing a high schooler.It's all about the right diet.

https://media.giphy.com/media/3oz8xGXctE1cXpDDgc/giphy.gif

[TGM]

This was fine I guess.

[Pop Trash]

I feel it is our duty as cinephiles to ostracize any person who makes a Juno comparison.

Funny enough, I kept thinking it was like a mid 00s Fox Searchlight movie, but in a good way (I think Juno, flaws and all, is a perfectly OK movie that will be remembered for years to come). This does feel very honest and has a specificity that I really liked. Lady Bird (the character) is clever, but not too clever and seems insecure enough to try different personas and friends out. And if you want to talk about the "female gaze" I don't think a male director ever would have cast Beanie Feldstein in the role as her best friend. My one nitpick is that I wish the movie ended about 30 seconds before it did. Gerwig had the perfect way to end it, but fumbled it in favor of a more rote voiceovery closure (although, one that I'm sure the citizens of Sacramento will love).

[number8]

I can see why even Armond White liked this. It's infectiously nice and talks down to no one, and the character is enough of a smartass to make her story conflicted, but she is meant to be likable despite her smartass streak, not because of it. It's a wholesome family story but also rhythmically keeps you on your toes as it flies through the school year. I feel like I can have a discussion of just the "People walk around with names their parents give them, yet they don't believe in God" line. I think I know what Lady Bird means by that, but does it mean more? Does it track? Pretty great movie.

[Milky Joe]

^ I wonder if it had been called something else it wouldn't have gotten a good review—then he wouldn't have had a chance to simultaneously heap praise on LBJ.

I think about this movie and I immediately get a big lump in my throat. It captures so much so well. I loved it.

[number8]

938458310872911874

[Sycophant]

No. Why is this happening.

[DavidSeven]

One day, the things that 20-year old interns write via corporate Twitter accounts won't be considered the most amazing thing ever.

[DavidSeven]

Also:

This was terrific. Very much crafted and artful, but there is also a consistent authenticity that pervades. Gerwig deftly brings an honest and unique perspective to economic class issues. The film's strongest point, however, is its characters. The narrative is loose and episodic, but the piece flows beautifully because of how endearing the characters are. I could've spent a much longer time with them. Ronan and Metcalf are wonderful.

[Pop Trash]

I can see why even Armond White liked this. It's infectiously nice and talks down to no one, and the character is enough of a smartass to make her story conflicted, but she is meant to be likable despite her smartass streak, not because of it. It's a wholesome family story but also rhythmically keeps you on your toes as it flies through the school year. I feel like I can have a discussion of just the "People walk around with names their parents give them, yet they don't believe in God" line. I think I know what Lady Bird means by that, but does it mean more? Does it track? Pretty great movie.

Keep in mind, Armond White is also Christian (while also being gay, black, and apparently, anti-hipster) and the movie is very generous to religious people compared to most indie films of its ilk. I really liked the scene where they pranked the nun by writing "just married to Jesus" on her car. In a lesser movie the nun would be furious and send everyone involved to detention, but instead she thinks it's funny and brushes it off. It's also hinted at that she genuinely liked getting attention from her car, so the prank had foresight to be not just malicious but even a genuinely kind gesture from Lady Bird. It's a little touch, but says a lot about trying to create warm, well rounded characters. Much like Wes Anderson films, there are no "bad guys" here.

[number8]

Keep in mind, White is also Christian (while also being gay, black, and apparently, anti-hipster) and the movie is very generous to religious people compared to most indie films of its ilk.

Yes, I meant to reply to Milky Joe's post that this movie hits all of White's sweet spots. It's pro-faith, champions a working class family's bootstrap mentality, pokes fun at affluent hipster intellectualism, and doesn't contain any rallying cry for progress despite its pivotal inclusion of a gay character. White's MO is to reject a drama primarily of being pandering, but you can't with this movie. This movie stays honest with the feelings it wants to convey while also showing concerted effort at being inoffensive. I think that's an accomplishment in itself.

[Ezee E]

Everything's been pretty much said here already, but I can also compare a lot of my life with Lady Bird here. The Catholic school, the envy of a big/nice house, Prom busts, family arguments/love, desire for somewhere else. All very touching.

Loved it.

[Ivan Drago]

I liked this but I want to like it as much as everyone else. It's well-made in every aspect of filmmaking, especially in acting and direction. I particularly loved how Gerwig took the quirky aesthetic that's common in most indies and grounded it in reality, which is refreshing. That being said, it just didn't grab me like it has for most audiences. I'm not sure why, though. . .but I feel bad to say that because the film is so earnest and honest with how it tells its story.

[number8]

Tomatometer fell to 99% because of one review. Dude filed his positive B- review as a "Rotten" just because he doesn't like that the movie had 100%. How edgy.

940769106080415744

[Spinal]

Narcissism is seeing a consensus score based on the opinion of 200 people and feeling that it should be calibrated to your personal barometer.

[Ezee E]

He should be removed from all future rotten tomatoes for that kind of comment.

[Irish]

This was remarkable. A few missteps, some bad context, awkward exposition. But the characters are perfect and the acting is ace.

I do agree with Pop Trash, though, on one point. I wish Gerwig hadn't tried so hard to sell us on the idea of Sacramento. She wrote some terrific characters and should have realized that they are the city's best selling point. The picture-postcard cinematography---especially toward the end---felt out of place and overdone. (And the phone call at the end was awkward in its overreach.)


I feel like I can have a discussion of just the "People walk around with names their parents give them, yet they don't believe in God" line. I think I know what Lady Bird means by that, but does it mean more? Does it track? Pretty great movie.

For me it was the exchange between the nun and the girl, when they're talking about her college admission essay. That line about love and attention. "You write about Sacramento so affectionately and with such care." "I was just describing it." "Well, it comes across as love." "Sure, I guess I pay attention." "Don't you think maybe they are the same thing? Love, and attention?"

I'm gonna spend the next few years occasionally considering whether or not what the old lady said was true.

[Peng]

Lucas Hedges' big scene feels like the key to Greta Gerwig's approach, I think. A confrontation that seems rife with comedic possibilities (and is initially so, with Saoirse Ronan's anger and their talk about her mother first) suddenly opens up another world for Lady Bird when she listens to his increasingly and movingly vulnerable plea, striking her with how someone so different in family background can have their own anguish that arises out of the background envied by her.

Even apart from the richly developed main supporting players like her family and best friend, everyone in Lady Bird's circle is granted by Gerwig a moment or more of empathetic grace note, often sharply comedic but always deeply humane. From the drama teacher, whose melancholy in the next scene after that Hedges one is achingly felt but never directly revealed in cause and effect (apart from a gossip tidibit) since it's outsides Lady Bird's knowing, to the pretentious love interest, whose assholeness is never absolved but complicated in her feelings when she catches a glimpse of his ill father she was told about earlier. Lady Bird's coming-of-age template may be "generic" in broad strokes, but its story is filled to the brim with such finely observed details of tender everyone-has-their-own-world understanding, that they surround and enrich Lady Bird's joyful moments and common heartbreak beautifully. 8/10

[number8]

Well that didn't last long. White seems to be annoyed that people aren't loving the movie for the same reason he did.


A Quiet Passion > Lady Bird

Terence Davies’s stunning film is as much auto-bio as it is bio-pic: compassion turned into ruthless self-examination and creativity. Greta Gerwig’s attempt at same is minor, yet so over-celebrated (without appreciating its coup de grâce rebuke of hipsterism), that the idiotic acclaim reveals this era’s widely shared disingenuousness.

[Dead & Messed Up]

without appreciating its coup de grâce rebuke of hipsterism

God, he's dull.

[baby doll]

To be fair to Armond White, though, A Quiet Passion is a much better film than Lady Bird (though his reason for comparing the two is a little strained, to put it mildly).

[Dukefrukem]

Really loved this. I have tremendous soft spots for coming of age films, or father-son-relationship movie. I completely relate to the Lady Bird character during the college application process and we both share our hate for California. It's just paced perfectly that's grounded with excellent acting. So yeh, one of the best I've seen in 2017, but that's currently not saying to much.

[MadMan]

My #1 of the year, for now, anyways. I went in not expecting anything significant. Came out thinking "This should win Best Picture, but it won't."

[MadMan]

White has written some great essays for Criterion releases. He still feels the need to troll for attention, however.

[Grouchy]

This was a nice film. For me the best thing about it was the editing - every scene was cut so swiftly yet Gerwig successfully underlined the details that made the characters come alive.

I agree the ending was a little overdone but it was still a fantastic, even moving coming-of-age piece.

[Kirby Avondale]

Well that didn't last long. White seems to be annoyed that people aren't loving the movie for the same reason he did.
Personally, I enjoyed A Quiet Passion primarily for its hipster flourishes: Victorian aesthetic, obsessive repartee, mannerism for days, and - oh yeah, right - Emily Dickinson. Nihilists, unite! You have nothing to lose but nothing!

[Grouchy]

I suddenly remembered I hadn't understood the father's subplot concerning suicide thoughts. I mean, I guessed that was it, but I was waiting for a later scene that confirmed it and it never happened.