Lady Bird - Film Review

'Lady Bird' is directed by Greta Gerwig and stars Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalfe, Lucas Hedges and Tracy Letts and is a coming of age story centred around a teenage girl called Christine, but she would like everyone to call her Lady Bird. She is trying to navigate the remaining years of her high school life and hopefully get into a college.

'Lady Bird' is a coming of age story about mother and daughter, and plays with this beautifully. It shows how mother and daughter can be so different, but also very similar. Saoirse Ronan is absolutely magnificent here. Her performance is very quirky, but startlingly real. She says and does things that don't come off as cliche, but rather things that you could easily imagine a teenage girl saying in her situations. Laurie Metcalfe as Lady Bird's mother is nothing short of stellar. Her performance is so real, and authentic, that it felt like real events were being presented in front of me. Everyone in this film gave fantastic performances.

The relationship between mother and daughter in this film is just beautiful, and never feels forced or cliched. It is all very palpable, but the message never feels ham-fisted. The movie is also thoroughly entertaining, and constantly funny. There is not a single dull moment in this film, I was with it every step of the way, and it was just superb.

The music was all really great, especially in the opening titles of this film. The cinematography is stunning as well as the sound mixing, in particular one scene with Lady Bird and her friend talking in a pool. The film has very strange dialogue at times, but it is never weird for the sake of being weird, it has a purpose, makes sense, and is very realistic.

'Lady Bird' is a wonderful coming of age story/comedy with some of the best performances of recent years, an extremely entertaining and bitter sweet story, arks that feel fulfilled and is relentlessly funny. This is a film that is just marvellous in every way.

'Lady Bird' gets a 98%