By Claire White.
So, there’s this film, you might have heard of it.
It’s Greta Gerwig’s solo feature debut as sole
writer/director, and stars the likes of Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracey Letts,
Lucas Hedges, and your new #1 Bae Timothée Chalamet.
You might have heard of this film, the one where a teenage
girl demands everyone calls her Lady Bird (her given name because it was given
to her, by her) due to its monumental hype. Since its release in the United
states two months earlier, it has graced many a Top 10 films of 2017 lists, was
the best-reviewed film on Rotten Tomatoes since Toy Story 3, received a
plethora of awards during the pre- Awards Season (with a capital A and S)
awards, has two Golden Globes, and five Oscar nominations.
And the film is only being released in Australia today.
Having caught the film at an advanced screening, you can be
rest assured the film is just as good as the hype says it is.
Featuring fantastic performances by Ronan and the cast (particularly
Laurie Metcalf, playing Lady Bird’s intimidating yet kind and hard-working
mother, who also has received award nods as supporting actress), this is aided
by the perfection of Gerwig’s script. Here you have a complex relationship
between a young girl and her mother. Both are fraught with frustration and
desire for a different life, but, as a spirited and ambitious teenager, Lady
Bird takes it out on her mother more. The way conversations can flow from a
nice moment into bickering or a fight is rarely seen on screen on this level,
and as a result, you leave the cinema filled with both recognition, because I can relate, as well as a desire to
call your mother.
(Speaking of which, here’s a reminder to call your mother).
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| Ronan (left) and Metcalf (right) as mother and daughter in Lady Bird. |
Everyone loves a good movie, but what is most exciting about
Lady Bird’s journey is the subject
matter: This is a contemporary (if we’re calling 2002/3 ‘contemporary’) story
about a teenage girl about to go off to college, and her relationship with her
mother and friends. Furthermore, it is an original screenplay written and
directed by a woman.
Such a response is unprecedented, especially for a film with
a Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Director nomination.
In a recent
post written for BFI, Christina Newland argues films about women or
directed by women are not given a fair go due to the lack of male critics willing
to take these films seriously in their reviews. As a result, coming of age films about young girls are often
glossed over in Hollywood. Teen films are fun, but you will not find them at
the Oscars line up or in a publication’s Top 100 Greatest Movies list.
This is why I am so excited to see just how well Lady Bird is doing, especially as a strong awards season contender.
During awards season, all eyes are on what industry
professionals deem the best films made from the past year. For film fanatics, every
moment of the awards race is analysed and debated with the intensity of a
fantasy football league in the lead up to the Super Bowl (of which I am
guilty). On the other hand, the nominated films are the only releases the
causal film viewer will hear as being worth seeing.
With its Best Picture nomination, Lady Bird is the first coming of age film about a teenage girl to
receive the accolade since An Education, which received a Best Picture nomination in
2009. Prior to An Education, no such
films were nominated.
While Nick Hornby was nominated for the screenplay, director
Lone Scherfig was excluded. With Gerwig’s Best Director nomination, she
is the first woman to receive a nomination for their first film, and is only the
fifth woman overall.
However, An Education is
not necessarily considered a teen film. While the lead character is a
sixteen-year-old school girl, the film takes the tone of a mature period drama.
The same can be said of Brooklyn, which
was nominated for Best Picture in 2015 (also starring Ronan).
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| Ronan as Christine 'Lady Bird' McPhearson and the fantastic Beanie Feldstein as her best friend, Julie. |
Seeing a film like this receive such high praise and
attention is so exciting to see. It is about time we see young girls taken
seriously in Hollywood. In the past ten years, teenage girls were almost four
times as likely as male teens to be depicted wearing tight clothing, and were
over twice as likely to be shown with some nudity. Over 50% of teenage girl
characters had a romantic interest. Culture is shaped by film, and having these
kinds representation force young girls into one mould. However, teenage girls
are more than a girlfriend or sexual object to be desired.
While writing the film, Gerwig
was aware of the lack of coming of age films about girls. Furthermore,
where they do exist, these films focus more on romantic relationships with
a boy rather than a girl’s own
personhood. “I thought what is Boyhood but
for a girl, or what is 400 Blows but
for a girl?” she said at the New York Film Festival earlier this year.
When the film won the Golden Globe for Best Picture (Musical
or Comedy), I was sitting in my friend’s living room floor, sobbing. Not only
is this because a female written and directed film won one of the season’s
highest accolades, but also because Lady
Bird is the perfect example of a film I want to write myself one day—Films
about young women and teenage girls; films about ambition and displacement and
friendship and love; Films which view the everyday of a girl as worth noting—and
Gerwig was nominated for Best Original Screenplay for that!
Every time I read an article on or interview with Gerwig, I
am filled with an intense emotion of pride and inspiration. I am filled with an
intense desire to go out and write. I feel seen,
which is not a feeling easy to come by in this industry.
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| Greta Gerwig on set with Saoirse Ronan. |
Lady Bird joins a
new era of female written and directed films about teenage girls. 2016’s Edge of Seventeen by Kelly Fremon Craig
was delightfully touching and reassured me that I am not the only one to have
had felt the same way growing up. The film was received well by critics, with
lead actress Hailee Steinfeld receiving a Best Actress (Comedy) nomination at
the Golden Globes. Like Lady Bird, the
film was also awarded Best First Film at New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Other
films of this era include Diary of aTeenage Girl, and internationally, Mustang
and Girlhood.
Films like Lady Bird allow for young girls to see themselves on screen. For these films to be received well critically demonstrates an action towards teenage girls and their personhood being taken seriously for once.
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Lady Bird is out in cinemas now.
Cause a Cine do not own any images used in this post.
