The five-time Oscar-nominated Lady Bird is an aesthetically pleasing coming-of-age film from debut director and writer Greta Gerwig. The film set in Sacramento, California is centered around 18-year-old Christine McPherson, who has bestowed the name Lady Bird upon herself. The movie follows Lady Bird as she embarks on her senior year at a Catholic high school and navigates the typical issues that are depicted in coming of age films whether it be struggling to find one’s true interests, friends, and overall identity. Gerwig does an excellent job approaching these issues in a way that makes even the most cliché topics and scenes come across as truly genuine and distinct to the overarching narrative. Within the first minutes, it became immediately clear to me that the screenplay was based on real events. Even though the screenplay was written and based on Greta Gerwig’s high school experience, it really allowed for the actors Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird) and Timothee Chalamet (who plays Kyle, Lady Bird’s boyfriend) to make the characters their own. Rather than an exposition, climax, and ending format, “Lady Bird” acts as a visual diary, displaying various events within a year that are equally hilarious as they are devastating. 

The film explores Lady Bird’s family dynamic with her admirable yet flawed father (Tracy Letts) and contrarian-withholding mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf), as well as Lady Bird’s dating life with her conspiracy theorist boyfriend, Kyle (Timothee Chalamet) and secretly gay lover, Danny (Lucas Hedges). These aspects of her life serve as areas to explore and deepen the film’s more original themes surrounding adulthood and forming a healthy level of self-esteem. All sides of Lady Bird’s life in the film play a huge role in forming the Lady Bird we see at the end as a college student and advance the plot significantly, with one exception. The very groundbreaking characters and the plot seem to fall apart completely while exploring the protagonist's social life.

Initially, the audience is to assume that as a new girl and a narcissistic person in general, Lady Bird is content with her sole friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein). But within a matter of seconds in the middle of the movie Gerwig pulls a 180 degree turn with that entire plot line we witness the typically independent Lady Bird now striving for popularity and aiming to befriend the cruel and rich Jenna Walton (Odeya Rush) in whatever way possible, even if it means defacing a nun’s car. Not only is this part entirely non-essential, it actually takes away from the other dynamics addressed in the film and prevents the development of secondary characters such as Larry, Danny, and Kyle. Granted this may have been an active choice to solely focus on Lady Bird’s inner-most conflicts and emotions there is NO excuse for how ridiculously overused the storyline is; protagonist dumps a true friend for a popular yet superficial classmate to gain clout. Despite the fact that this conflict is only a minor part of the movie it certainly takes away from the overall nature of the otherwise innovative and captivating facets within “Lady Bird”. 

Upon watching the film for the first time I gave no attention to the cinematography and overall composition of the shots. Only while rewatching I really began to appreciate the framing and unique color grading. This came as no surprise seeing as the film was produced by the legendary company A24 Films who is responsible for “Moonlight”, “Ex Machina”, “The Disaster Artist”, and “The Florida Project”. All things considered, “Lady Bird” had to remain absent from any flashy editing and filming in order to achieve its main objective; tell a compelling story, which it most certainly did.