NOVEMBER 27, 2017
OK, I was wrong.
While that three-word phrase might do wonders in my marriage, it’s not great if I’m trying to establish credibility in a movie review column. But I have to come clean and admit that many of my fellow critics have been touting actress Greta Gerwig as the Next Big Thing. Having watched her performances in “Frances Ha” and “Mistress America,” I thought that she was good, but the Next Big Thing? No way.
When it was announced that she was about to undertake her first solo directorial debut, “Lady Bird,” let’s just say I was skeptical.
I needn’t have been. “Lady Bird” just knocked me for a loop.
When I first saw the film, I sat in the theater with my arms metaphorically crossed, OK, Gerwig, show me. Boy, did she ever.
The first scene is simple. Marion McPherson (Laurie Metcalf) is driving along with her daughter Christine (Saorise Ronan) listening to the conclusion of the audio book of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” Both are dissolving into tears when Marion asks if they can stop and appreciate that moment. Christine, who calls herself “Lady Bird,” instead changes the subject to one that gets a rise out of her mother (in an argument that they seem to have had 100 times before) about Christine’s future plans.
Then comes an act that’s shocking but one which is the only way that Lady Bird can deal with her mother.
Cut to Lady Bird at Mass at her Catholic high school. Every movement, every gesture is spot on, as it was in the first car scene. “Oh my God, this is good,” I thought to my unbelieving self. And it only gets better from there.
As you may have guessed, Lady Bird is a bit of an outsider at her high school, with only one best friend, Julie (Beanie Feldstein). She is taken under the wing of the school’s head nun, Sister Sarah Joan (Lois Smith), who. given Lady Bird’s outgoing personality, suggests that she try out for the Drama Club. She gets a chorus part while Julie snags the female lead in their high school’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s notorious flop, “Merrily We Roll Along” (which I kinda like).
There she meets the musical’s lead, the nice Irish-Catholic Danny O’Neill (Lucas Hedges, Oscar nominee for “Manchester by the Sea”), for whom she swoons, but he has a secret other life. Then she turns to bad boy Kyle Scheible (Timothée Chalamet, who is about to break big in “Call Me By Your Name”), who sulks at parties by reading and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes.
But Lady Bird’s most contentious relationship is with her Mom, and this is where both Ronan and Metcalf really shine. As hard as Lady Bird tries, she cannot get a single compliment from her mother. When Lady Bird emerges for a waiting room where she’s trying on a potential prom gown and looks radiant, all that Marion can say is that it looks “too pink.” That kind of relationship.
Gerwig’s best decision is to populate her cast with theater veterans, including not only Ronan (on Broadway last year in Ivo van Hove’s production of “The Crucible”) and Metcalf (Broadway’s current Tony champ as Best Actress for “A Doll’s House, Part 2”). But there’s more. Feldstein is currently treading the Broadway boards alongside Bette Midler in “Hello, Dolly!,” as well as Stephen McKinley Henderson (an August Wilson regular who played Denzel Washington’s best friend in his film of “Fences”) and theater legend Smith, who plays the kind of nun we all wished we had in Catholic school.
The performances are wonderful (especially Metcalf, whom I suspect will win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this performance). Gerwig’s writing is insightful and top-notch, and her direction is so assured that it never feels like a first-timer at the helm.
This is one of the best movies of the year.
GRADE: A
(Timothée Chalamet)
