Lady Bird is a 2017 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Lois Smith. Set in Sacramento, California in 2002, it is a coming-of-age story of a high-school senior (Ronan) and her turbulent relationship with her mother (Metcalf).
Lady Bird premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on September 1, 2017 and was released in the United States on November 3, 2017 by A24. Gerwig's screenplay and direction and Ronan and Metcalf's performances received praise. It has grossed $48 million on a $10 million budget.
Lady Bird was chosen by the National Board of Review, the American Film Institute, and Time as one of the top 10 films of the year. At the 90th Academy Awards, it earned five nominations: Best Picture, Best Actress for Ronan, Best Supporting Actress for Metcalf, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Director. At the 75th Golden Globe Awards, Lady Bird won for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy and Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Ronan), and was nominated for two more. It was nominated for three British Academy Film Awards.
Video Lady Bird (film)
Plot
Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson is a senior student at a Catholic high school in Sacramento, California. She longs to attend an Ivy League college in "a city with culture". Her family is struggling financially, and her mother tells her Lady Bird is ungrateful for what she has.
Lady Bird and her best friend Julie join their school theater program, where Lady Bird meets a boy called Danny O'Neill. They develop a romantic relationship, and, to her mother's disappointment, Lady Bird joins Danny's family for Thanksgiving dinner. Their relationship ends when Lady Bird discovers Danny kissing another boy in a bathroom stall.
At the behest of her mother, Lady Bird takes a job at a coffee shop, where she meets a young musician, Kyle. He and Lady Bird begin a romantic relationship, and she and Julie drift apart. After Jenna, one of the popular girls at the school, is reprimanded by a teacher, Sister Sarah, for wearing a short skirt, Lady Bird suggests the two bond by vandalizing the Sister's car. Lady Bird gives Danny's family home as her address to appear wealthy.
Lady Bird drops out of the theater program. At the coffee shop, she consoles Danny after he expresses his struggle to come out. After Kyle tells her he is a virgin, she loses her virginity to him, but he later denies saying this. Jenna discovers that Lady Bird lied about her address. Lady Bird discovers that her father has lost his job and has been battling depression for most of his life.
Lady Bird begins applying to east-coast colleges, despite her mother's insistence that the family cannot afford it. She is elated to discover that she has been placed on the wait list for a New York college. She sets out for her high school prom with Kyle, Jenna, and Jenna's boyfriend, but the three decide to go to a party instead. Lady Bird asks them to drop her off at Julie's apartment, where the two rekindle their friendship and go to the prom together.
On her eighteenth birthday, Lady Bird's father shares a cupcake with her and jokes that he and her mother are not getting a divorce because they cannot afford it. To celebrate reaching legal age, Lady Bird buys a pack of cigarettes, a scratch-off ticket, and an issue of Playgirl. She passes her driving test and redecorates her bedroom. Her mother discovers that she has applied to out-of-state universities behind her back, and stops talking to her. Lady Bird learns she has been accepted to the New York college, and can afford the tuition with financial aid and the help of her father. Her mother refuses to see her off at the airport; she has a change of heart and drives back in to the airport, but Lady Bird has already left.
In New York, Lady Bird finds thoughtful letters written by her mother and salvaged by her father, and begins using her birth name again. She is hospitalized after drinking heavily at a party. After leaving the hospital, she observes a Sunday church service, then calls home and leaves an apologetic message for her mother.
Maps Lady Bird (film)
Cast
Production
Development
Gerwig spent years writing the screenplay. At one point it was over 350 pages long, and had the working title Mothers and Daughters. In 2015, Gerwig and her team secured financing from IAC Films, who produced the film alongside Scott Rudin Productions. Gerwig's manager, Evelyn O'Neill, also served as a producer.
Although Lady Bird has been described as semi-autobiographical. Gerwig stated that "nothing in the movie literally happened in my life, but it has a core of truth that resonates with what I know". To prepare the cast and crew, Gerwig gave them her old high-school yearbooks, photos, and journals, as well as passages written by Joan Didion, and took them on a tour of her hometown. She told the director of photography, Sam Levy, she wanted the film to feel "like a memory," and said that she "sought to offer a female counterpart to tales like The 400 Blows and Boyhood." The film is Gerwig's first as solo director: in 2008, she co-directed Nights and Weekends with Joe Swanberg.
Casting
In September 2015, Gerwig met with Saoirse Ronan at the Toronto International Film Festival, where they were promoting Maggie's Plan and Brooklyn, respectively. They ran through the script in a hotel room, with Ronan reading the part of Lady Bird, and Gerwig reading the other characters. Gerwig realized by page 2 that Ronan was the right choice for the lead. In January 2016, Ronan was cast. Gerwig met with Lucas Hedges and offered him his choice from the male parts. He chose Danny. Gerwig cast Laurie Metcalf after seeing her theater work; the rest of the cast--including Tracy Letts, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, John Karna and Jordan Rodrigues--was announced in September 2016.
Filming
Principal photography was scheduled to begin in March 2016, but delayed to August due to Ronan's commitments to a performance of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Filming began on August 30, 2016, in Sacramento, California. Other locations included Los Angeles and New York City.
Ronan dyed her hair red for the role, and did not wear makeup to cover up her acne; she has said she saw the film as "a really good opportunity to let a teenager's face in a movie actually look like a teenager's face in real life". Gerwig, using a technique she learned from the filmmaker Rebecca Miller, arrived an hour before everyone else to put the actors and crew at ease by knowing exactly how the day would run. She also banned smartphones on the set, a policy borrowed from Noah Baumbach.
Release
In July 2017, A24 acquired worldwide distribution rights to the film. The film had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on September 1, 2017, and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2017, and the New York Film Festival on October 8, 2017. Focus Features acquired international distribution rights to the film. It was theatrically released in the United States on November 3, 2017, and was released in the United Kingdom on February 16, 2018.
Reception
Box office
As of February 18, 2018, Lady Bird has grossed $46.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $1.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $48.2 million.
In its limited opening weekend, it grossed $364,437 from four theaters, for a per-theater average of $91,109. It had the second best theater average of 2017 and the highest-ever for a film in limited release directed by a woman. The film expanded to 37 theaters in its second weekend, and grossed a three-day total of $1.2 million, finishing 10th at the box office. In its third weekend, the film expanded to 238 theaters, and grossed a three-day total of $2.5 million, finishing 8th at the box office.
The film had its official wide release on November 24, playing in 724 theaters and making $4 million over the weekend ($5.4 million over the five-day Thanksgiving frame), finishing 11th. Expanding to 1,194 theaters the following week the film grossed $4.3 million, returning to 8th place. Lady Bird also became A24's highest-grossing film domestically, ahead of Moonlight, which made $27.9 million. The weekend of January 27, 2018, following the announcement of the film's five Oscar nominations, it made $1.9 million (an increase over the previous week's $1.1 million).
Critical response
Lady Bird received a standing ovation at its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and was praised for Ronan and Metcalf's performances, and Gerwig's directorial efforts. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 99% based on 277 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Lady Bird delivers fresh insights about the turmoil of adolescence and reveals debuting writer-director Greta Gerwig as a fully formed filmmaking talent." On November 27, 2017, the film became the most-reviewed film ever to remain at 100% on the site with 164 positive reviews, beating previous record holder Toy Story 2, which has 163 positive reviews. It stayed at 100% until 196 registered reviews. On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 94 out of 100, based on 50 critics, indicating "universal acclaim."
A.O. Scott of The New York Times labelled Lady Bird as "big-screen perfection", and found it to be "exceptionally well-written, full of wordplay and lively argument. Every line sounds like something a person might actually say, which means that the movie is also exceptionally well acted." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter said the film was "modestly scaled but creatively ambitious" and "succeeds on its own terms as a piquant audience pleaser", and gave praise to Ronan, whom he said "just seems to keep getting better all the time." Peter Debruge of Variety praised Gerwig's direction and script, as well as Ronan's performance. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said the film was "simply beautiful" and "warm and inspired", hailing the performances of Ronan and Metcalf as well as Gerwig's direction and screenplay.
The Washington Post's Ann Hornaday described the film as a "triumph of style, sensibility and spirit" while similarly praising Ronan's performance and Gerwig's direction. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone rated the film 3.5 out of four stars in which he deemed it as "Simply Irresistible" and complimented the film's plot and narrative while highlighting the performances of Ronan and Metcalf in which he stated as an "Oscar calling" and Gerwig's direction as "full-blown triumph". He also even declared it as one of the year's best films. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "unique and original and fresh and wonderful" and "appealing" while lauding the performances (particularly Metcalf and Letts) in which he remarked that "There's no level of acting on a higher plane than what [Metcalf] and [Letts] achieve in this film. This is what greatness looks like." Alonso Duralde of TheWrap remarked that "Gerwig the actress skillfully pivots between the wacky and the poignant, so it's no surprise that Gerwig the auteur so delicately balances hilarity and heartbreak".
Accolades
Lady Bird garnered a variety of awards and nominations, and was selected by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute as one of the top 10 films of the year. At the 90th Academy Awards, it is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Gerwig, Best Actress for Ronan, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Metcalf. It received eight nominations at the 23rd Critics' Choice Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Acting Ensemble. At the 75th Golden Globe Awards, it was nominated for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy (won), Best Actress - Musical or Comedy for Ronan (won), Best Supporting Actress for Metcalf, and Best Screenplay. At the 24th Screen Actors Guild Awards, it was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role for Ronan, Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role for Metcalf, and Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
Notes
References
External links
- Official website
- Lady Bird on IMDb
- Lady Bird at AllMovie
Source of article : Wikipedia
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