Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017) prod. Eli Bush, Evelyn O’Neill, Scott Rudin; Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts; won Best Motion Picture (Musical/Comedy) Golden Globes 2018; nomination for Best Actress Oscar: Saoirse Ronan; 5 nominations
[In 2002 an artistically-inclined seventeen-year-old girl comes of age in Sacramento.]
A pleasant domestic story, so in that sense not completely unlike Brooklyn, one difference being that Ronan does this one with a Californian accent, whereas in the other she drew on her genealogical background to play someone from Ireland. I didn't believe for more than a moment that she was 17 (she was about 22), but it didn't impede plausibility generally. This young lady has far to go. She won't win the Oscar because Frances McDormand and Sally Hawkins are in the queue ahead of her, but she may if she gets the right part later.
I was amused to learn that Sacramento (the capital) is the 'mid-west of California'. I guess that wherever you happen to grow up can seem tedious, even if it is Paris or Machu Pichu.
(When I first heard the title I wondered why anyone would make a biopic about Lyndon Johnson's wife. They could have thought of a different name with a similar effect.)
A critic:
A captivating central performance from Saoirse Ronan … [her] 17-year-old Christine McPherson is the embodiment of every trapped adolescent who yearns for a life less ordinary than the one she is currently enduring.
Garry Gillard | reviews | New: 27 January, 2018 | Now: 4 January, 2022