In my opinion, the best kinds of movies are those that tell more than one story. Greta Gerwig's highly acclaimed 2017 film "Lady Bird" is certainly one of these movies. It's a coming-of-age tale about a high school senior in Sacramento, but it also showcases the United States of America in a very vulnerable, convalescent time in the years following 9/11.
And evoking this time period is a tall order. But Gerwig's thematic palette wields so many flavorful narrative hues that the audience isn't distracted by the fact that this movie takes place in 2002. I'm too young myself to concretely remember the time that Gerwig is presenting, but I still felt nostalgic and emotionally attached to this world that she created. It's a masterful story, and it's masterfully conveyed, because Gerwig bases her quirky and often unique narrative world around some more common threads of human experience: the playful drama of high school, the unavoidable tension between parent and child, the stressful season of college applications.
It's these widespread and more broad stories that the audience is able to use as focal points, which they can grab onto and lock into the experience of this particular high-schooler at this particular time. And even though I don't have any memory of 9/11 and I've never lived in Sacramento or even spent enough time to have an experience of the city to call back on, I feel like I can relate to the world that Gerwig builds with her characters, that it's a place I've lived in. And in a figurative sense, it really is a place that I've lived in, despite the fact that I'm some 14 or 15 years younger, as well as a different race and gender. It's a beautiful story, and it's masterfully conveyed by Greta Gerwig's screenplay.
It's the little details that create this reality so beautifully, the meticulous costuming and set design all form this intimately constructed evocation of the past. And what's really interesting is that even though the focus is always on Saoirse Ronan's brilliant performance as the titular character navigating the final months of her high school life, if we let ourselves defocus a little, we can see a bigger picture: a nation on the verge of dramatic changes, dealing with extreme adversity, having faced immense tragedy; it's a time of high tensions and immense alienation, but it's also a time where love and nurturing are more needed than ever before.
And when you think about it, that description applies really well to Lady Bird, who is on the verge of dramatic changes, and as she's exploring amazing new alcoves of what life has to offer, she's constantly at odds with her parents, but she also needs support more than ever. 2002 as a backdrop for adolescence makes all of these themes just that lucid, and it rings particularly true because this is a real experience that Greta Gerwig had in her own coming of age. And although it's somewhat a personal story, it accentuates experiences that many more go through year after year after year.
That's what I feel every grounded film should strive for—extending a unique and defiantly individual world to a broader scope. And "Lady Bird" certainly reaches to a wide audience. "Lady Bird" is a movie about one person, a high-school senior in Sacramento during the year 2002. But she is emotional, curious, excited, and nervous, and that's what carries over to us, the audience, and draws us in, appealing to our emotions, curiosity, excitement, and our nerves. That's the trick that Gerwig pulls off without blinking an eye, and it's how characterizations can really carry over beyond demographics.
As a side note, it's unbelievable that Greta Gerwig is only the fifth woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director. I don't necessarily even feel that this is a poor reflection upon the Oscars (although they have their biases and are FAR from a perfect institution, but so is any organization that tries to definitively determine the best output of a given year). If anything, it makes it clear that Hollywood, in its current state, fails to properly support creative women behind the camera. I hope that Greta Gerwig's amazing coming-of-age story proves that films crafted by women and centered around women aren't limited perspectives—they're far-reaching.
