Time To Fly

Lady Bird
2017 | R | 1 Hr. 34 Min | Drama | A24

Director: Greta Gerwig

Writer: Greta Gerwig

Stars:

Saoirse Ronan

Laurie Metcalf

Tracy Letts

Synopsis:

Christine "Lady Bird" MacPherson is a high school senior from the "wrong side of the tracks." She longs for adventure, sophistication, and opportunity, but finds none of that in her Sacramento Catholic high school. LADY BIRD follows the title character's senior year in high school, including her first romance, her participation in the school play, and most importantly, her applying for college.

We all have had at least a couple of awkward yet interesting stories about their senior year of high school. It's one of those common bonds that get people talking and usually leads to even deeper dissection in the later years of a person's life. But at the moment, when those stories are being written, they feel like the deepest, most important experiences we'll ever face in our entire lives. Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird is authentic and affecting as any of those stories could ever be. Lady Bird is a story told throughout her senior year of high school,  trying to fly, and the mistakes made like a true teenage during each awkward attempt.

With its strong cast Lady Bird's star, Saoirse Ronan brings her charter to life as we quickly change season's and deal with teenage life along the way. And Gerwig's directorial debut is beautifully shot frame by frame but there is a bit of a problem with the narrative flow of the film. The sum-total of Lady Bird's senior year feels more like a series of loosely connected vignettes, rather than a fully connected story. Sadly a more focused narrative would have driven home the points it had to make about the adolescent experience.

Lady Bird is an enjoyable film, with an honest heart about it and while the narrative is less structured than a typical film's story, it's still a nostalgic look back on those days when being a kid wasn't an option, but being an adult was still a little bit in the distance. I can see my daughter watching this with my wife someday or maybe her best friend and having it connect with them as they see the growing pains through the eyes of somebody else.

Sadly though the scattered storyline really took me out of the movie and I found myself searching the web to see if that was in deeded Laura Marano from Disneys Astin and Aly fame in the backround. I really wanted to love this movie but in the end, I only liked it. If your living with a teen it's worth the look if not well maybe it will conjure up some good memories of High School.

3 out of 5 Stars