Oscars 2018: Review- Lady Bird

Lady Bird is the final big Oscar contender to be released here in the UK and despite being a far lower key movie than any single other one of the other Best Picture nominees, it still manages to be an absolute knockout. The story is about as simple as they come. It's a coming of age story about a young girl who calls herself Lady Bird, making her way through her final year of high school before she heads off to University. Along the way, she gets involved in plays, meets boys and just generally tries to work out who she is before she takes on the world. In terms of plot, it doesn't exactly break any new ground and anyone who's seen their fair share of coming of age movies will spot a lot of the beats coming. With that said, it hits all those elements in just the right ways, making you see all these events afresh. So not an original plot but one that will absorb you regardless.

As the list of nominations may make you realise, Lady Bird is a film full of great performances. Not all are exactly memorable but even those who aren't are only unmemorable because they blend in with the rest of the film. In the best friend role, there's Beanie Feldstein and she works wonderfully as the warm spot in Lady Bird's life who is always there for her. In terms of those pesky boys, the duties are split between Lucas Hedges as the theatre kid and (my boi) Timothee Chalamet as the edgy, pretentious guy. Hedges is good and does what he needs to but I loved Chalamet because (without spoiling too much) of how different he is to his role in Call Me By Your Name. Getting to that central family though, Tracy Letts is subtly wonderful as Lady Bird's father and when on screen, he was great but does get sidelined for the mother-daughter relationship. Speaking of, Laurie Metcalf plays the mother character and is outstanding. She has to juggle that duality that mothers have to face with their children and one scene she has near the end absolutely broke me. Obviously though, the star is Saoirse Ronan and god damn it, she's great. There's nothing showy about her performance and that's probably the highest praise I have about it: she just feels true. As in, it's only as I write this that it's really striking me that she was an actress and not part of a documentary. Huh.

Greta Gerwig is the driving force behind this film and therefore, it'd be impossible to discuss it without talking about her. As a director, I'm not crazy on the work she's done. It's well directed and a great first film but not impressive enough to warrant the Oscar nomination. Instead, I think most of the power comes from the script, also written by Gerwig. The dialogue feels pure and the free flowing structure of the movie is a huge strength. Equally, the characters all feel fully rounded, an impressive feat considering the large ensemble of characters so for the script, nothing but praise. There's a real emotional core to this film though, a warm, powerful heart that powers everything. At this point, I have to distance myself somewhat from the critical perspective as I think the reason the movie worked so well on me is because these are events I've lived through the last 18 months of my life. I spotted parts of me in all the characters at first but then I was seeing exact events and reliving huge events in my life and the tears just started flowing. Like, they started and didn't stop for the rest of the film. Lady Bird made me an emotional wreck and may well do the same to you. You'll definitely want to tell your mum how much you love her though.

Possibly part of the charm I found in Lady Bird was just the proximity of these events to my own life but I genuinely think that everyone is going to find at least a little bit to love here. The characters are charming and the emotions are warm and bubbly. It will make you smile and it will make you cry but damn it, it makes you feel so strongly and I know I'm going to see it at least one more time in cinemas. For all these reasons, I feel very happy giving Lady Bird a