I had the pleasure of attending a screening of Lady Bird (for my third time) accompanied by a Q&A with the director and writer, Greta Gerwig. The movie has already won 83 awards and is a five-time nominee at the Academy Awards, including a Best Director nomination for Gerwig; she is only the fifth female director ever nominated for an Academy Award.
The film follows high school senior, Christine McPherson, as she struggles to grow beyond her hometown of Sacramento and assume her identity under the name of “Lady Bird”. Christine dreams of moving to New York City and experiencing something unique. She is confident and headstrong when she knows she wants to join theater or date the moody bass player in the band. She is vulnerable and repentant when her and her mother get into a fight that leaves both parties silent and aching for resolve. Lady Bird is honest, messy and true. From her experiences trying to succeed in high school, to her friendships and first loves, these experiences all echo the feelings of “coming of age,” a feeling every young person knows far too well. But at the heart of the movie is a love story between a mother and her daughter. The movie does an impeccable job at illustrating the varying levels of communication mothers and daughters have that make up their intricate yet loving relationship.
The original draft of the movie’s manuscript was 350 pages long and was originally titled “Mothers and Daughters”. When asked about how she made the script semi-autobiographical, she explained, “the emotions and settings are real, but the facts aren’t.” When writing the character of Lady Bird, she saw it as a chance to relive her formative years as a self-confident young lady instead of the introverted, shy woman Greta Gerwig described herself as really being. She “wrote into characters” by exploring the things she was not able or courageous enough to do as a teenager.
Lady Bird is Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut. She describes her love of filmmaking through the insight that “you never lose the fear” while you get to “experience immense waves of joy”. When asked about her transformation from actor to writer and director, she was honest about her own insecurities of putting herself out there and admitting to herself that her true passion was directing. Gerwig described directing as “the thing [she] knew [she] was most scared of” and also “the thing [she] was most jealous of”. Directing and writing are her passions, and we as an audience are lucky enough to have had it find her so she could create this masterpiece of a movie. The film’s ease at being both relatable and heartwarming make it a true contender for the Oscars, possibly showing that the Lady Bird gets the worm.