Tropic Sprockets /Lady Bird

Tropic Sprockets /Lady Bird

By Ian Brockway

Greta Gerwig delivers an affecting film about a young girl wanting to make an impact during her stifling late teens. Her film is evocative, brisk and quietly stirring. Gerwig wonderfully hones in on small details, painting a swift and precise picture of life in the claustrophobic suburbs of Sacramento, California and the creative girl who lives there, hungry to make an impact.

Saoirse Ronan is Christine “Lady Bird” Macpherson, a senior in a Catholic high school who feels hindered by her surroundings. She wants to create and be stimulated. Christine makes Max Ernst-like posters of bird creatures that concern the nun, Sister Sarah (Lois Smith).

She spends time with her one friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein) and they eat communion wafers like potato chips.

The high school senior butts heads with her passive aggressive mother (Laurie Metcaff) who always feels that woe is near. Christine’s upbeat father (Tracy Letts) provides some cheer and conspires to get her financial aid.

Though the film is not autobiographical per se, Gerwig’s whimsical persona materializes in the form of Ronan, who carries her rapidity of speech along with some of her circus-like gawky movement.

Like the film “Boyhood”, the film can be seen as a time-capsule. Here it is 2002, post 9/11. Christine brims with artistic energy, yet she is repeatedly frustrated. She meets Danny (Lucas Hedges) a theatrical young boy with Republican parents, and falls in love, only to catch him French kissing another boy. Later, she becomes head over heels in love with the wannabe anarchist Kyle (Timothee Chalamet) only to find him slothful, judgmental and manipulative.

All systems confine. Art and self expression are the only way forward.

Though there have been many films about the pain of growing up, the film upsets our expectations. During prom, Christine does not have boys on her mind. She thinks of her best friend. Beanie Feldstein and Saoirse Ronan share great energy together. Because of this, the story is a surprise, and it is one of the most stirring portraits of a friendship that I have seen.

Moreover, “Lady Bird” deserves great credit by refusing convention: just when some might sense resolution, the screen goes black and we are left with our own thoughts of teen turmoil and perhaps even disquieted.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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