Let us anticipate Greta Gerwig's directorial debut "Lady Bird"

I've seen people saying Edge Of Seventeen is better at doing the same/similar thing, i preferred this much more but i can see why there's a mini-cult around that film.

You guys use Letterboxd? I can't recall it being mentioned much on ILX but over there this is in the Top 10 films of the decade.

haven't used letterbox'd

in a lot of ways Lady Bird reminds me of aspects of my life - growing up at the lower end of middle class just outside a solidly upper middle class community (with parents who were really committed to educating their kids), going to catholic school, and having to fight with my parents to be allowed to attend an out-of-state college that was way too expensive for them.

the perfect high school movie for me!

j.d. so otm about this getting the day-to-dayness of it all.

yes, seconded.

what is with the love for The Edge of Seventeen? my brother loves it, saw it 10+ in theaters (...???), I saw it once with him and yeah it was good and it definitely felt different than most high school movies. mostly its pacing. but top 10 of the decade? I could be convinced

We just got around to Lady Bird last night. Enjoyed it, especially Saoirse Ronan and Beanie Feldstein, but had some of the "what was the hype about" reaction. It's a nicely acted coming of age story with some uneven writing and pacing. Gerwig has talent but I bet her next movie will be better. The wrong-side-of-the-tracks stuff was a little labored -- I think "Pretty in Pink" did it better. (With the benefit of Harry Dean Stanton, of course.)

I think "Pretty in Pink" did it better

Outside of discussions of movie endings that are on every level incorrect, I've never heard this phrase uttered.

Finally saw this. At first I thought I was disappointed by it, and there are still some writing choices that annoy me: I think Gerwig repeatedly emphasizes the family's (relative) poverty a bit too much; Lady Bird making a crack about "the wrong side of the tracks" and passing off her (boy)friend's grandma's house as her own are enough that we don't need the mother constantly reminding her (and us) how poor they all are. Also, the bit about the coach directing the play was funny until Gerwig decides to hammer the joke home a bit too much; I found his discomfort with making the switch from football to theatre a lot funnier before he started mapping out plays and barking out cheers. I took both of these things as a lack of confidence in the material that is likely the result of being a first time director, but they annoyed me all the same. I also didn't find the conclusion as moving as I expect I was meant to, and I wish the movie had found a way to end without the New York stuff, and particularly the phone call.

But the stuff that's good is very good: pretty much all of the performances (Tracy Letts is kind of a secret weapon here), the dimensions afforded to Metcalf's character, the way that the whole prom episode plays out, and the line about attention = love (truthfully, it was these last two that finally bumped me from a strong 6/10 to a more enthusiastic-with-reservations 7/10). At least two bigs laughs for me, as well: I'm thinking of Ronan's response to Chalamet's posturing about Iraq--"Different things can be sad, it's just war!"--and her later bafflement over what's wrong with Greatest Hits albums--"but they're the greatest."

― Police, Academy (cryptosicko), Friday, July 20, 2018 12:17 PM (yesterday)

great post. the ending bothers me too but ultimately the movie succeeds in making me feel the way it wants to anyway

No one made a Juno comparison? It did have an "I have a burger phone and my entire personality is based on it" oscar nominated air about it. Movies that base themselves on quirk, I want some real joy or rewatchability out of it. I really think GG is super charming, but I somehow just don't love anything she has been involved with.

Thanks k3vin!

I think "Pretty in Pink" did it better

I appreciate the spirit of this statement even if I don't agree with it.

But, hmmm...

Saoirse Ronan = Molly Ringwald
Laurie Metcalf = Harry Dean Stanton
Lucas Hedges = Jon Cryer
Timothee Chalamet = James Spader
Beanie Feldstein = Andrew McCarthy

The Juno comparison is far more insulting than the Pretty in Pink one.

GG occupies the same vibe as Phoebe Waller-Bridge but PWB is just vastly more interesting to me. Maybe I just am tired of NY faux-haplessness.

xxp I really don't think this movie was "quirky" in that sense and I wouldn't compare it to Juno (although I did love Jennifer Garner in that movie)

xpost the Juno and Little Miss comparisons are because they were all nominated for best picture. They aren't ingenues fucking fish, but who is.

I keep thinking about Ladybird and this movie that had Paris from Gilmore Girls in it called "Whatever" too.

the Juno and Little Miss comparisons are because they were all nominated for best picture.

Good point. I thought the intent was to align Lady Bird with Juno and LMS in terms of self-satisfied quirk, but I sense little (if any) of that in Gerwig's film.

ingenues fucking fish, lol

I have no idea who Phoebe Waller-Bridge is

this wasn't in any sense "NY faux-haplessness"

For fellow PWB fans this is the first episode of a new podcast called How To Fail and it's excellent, especially the bit about ballsing up a Downton Abbey audition.

https://howtofail.podbean.com/e/how-to-fail-phoebe-waller-bridge-1531470141/

people have been telling me to watch Fleabag, but I haven't gotten around to it, didn't realize she was in it

xpost, Had no clue about the podcast. Thx.

Fleabag, Crashing, Killing Eve. All highly entertaining.

Oh GG is NY faux haplessness in her general work. I just saw Francis Ha a couple of months ago and was kind of angry about how much I hated it. Like, that's a film that should be catnip to me.

And PWB wrote and created all of the above as well.

I liked Frances Ha, but I agree that it might be categorized as NY faux haplessness

Yeah it's her show based on her 1-woman play, she wrote it and exec produced it and even the title is a pisstake of her name.

I thought Lady Bird was insanely un-quirky? Like she thinks of herself as an outsider and weird but it’s more that she feels like an outlier due to economic status and her dislike of the popular kids.

I think the difference between this and, say, Juno, was the dialogue wasn’t super punchy. It’s not Ghost World because no one is wrapped up in an outlier identity (unless you count the goth crew in her house, and they act like normal people and her brother’s interviewing for norm office jobs). And it’s not a Mean Girls-style star vehicle because the main character is far from the center of her world. If anything, it’s about her figuring out how you even find your place in the world.

^agree

xp don't mean to give short shrift to Frances Ha, I think it is better than almost any other film mentioned in this thread

I didn’t really mean Pretty in Pink is a better movie, but I did feel like the socioeconomic angles in Lady Bird were presented in a more didactic way than in PiP. Where Lady Bird had flaws for me was in some tell-don’t-show tendencies.

fair

I feel like the attempt at understatedness in movies like LB mean we get more extended dialogue about “we don’t have the money!” where in obvious comedy it’s typified by a character just rolling up in a junket car with oil smoke coming from the hood as it lurches to a stop

quirk off the top of my head: early 90s outsider pink hair, jumps out of a car, runs for class office every year, buys lottery ticket, nudie mag, smokes on birthday, teacher shenanigans, did they ever say why she wanted to be called Lady Bird? Saorsie Ronan is soooo good in this though and Chalamet has dreamy eyes.

all of that stuff felt like things an "alternative" kid far from being actually that rebellious or countercultural would really do, rather than someone dreaming up "quirky" things to add "quirky" charm to a false character.... ymmv tho. i will also cop to being close to lady bird's age/generation, and so it feeling even close to "right" in getting the feel of what teenagerdom/high school felt like to me in that period goes a long way in me identifying with and finding it realistic.

I was a high school girl in the early 90s and I was a college rock/120 minutes kid, it still felt quirky. I just wanted the movie to be better and less obvious. It was so close.

wasn't it supposed to take place in the early 2000s? 2003 or something? i think the early 90s were a massively long time ago in lady bird years.

i guess i thought her quasi rebellious hair and clove-smoking were supposed to seem like perennial pursuits of the kind of girl who wants to distinguish herself from her peers and still remains more or less normal. there was nothing esp outstanding about her. i liked that about the movie tbh.

Derp, yeah it says 2002, I don't know why I thought 90s. Maybe because of the use of Crash.

Slums is a much better movie

Ladybird is good but it’s been done way better

Suburbia - slums - little miss sunshine ♥️

did they ever say why she wanted to be called Lady Bird?

No they didn’t, I watched it again to see if I missed anything but this is never explained! wtf

that's one of the good things about it

Lots about this movie felt auxiliary, like sometimes it was nice that certain characters were not expanded on too much but given their moment but some major characters felt underdeveloped to me, like the Mom (despite a wonderful performance).

when you're a teen, are moms ever really knowable

fwiw I took the musical choices of LB and her friend to be kind of this nerdy friend thing where they were still really stuck on the songs that came out when they were in middle school

What I liked most about LB was that it seemed made with a light touch which also suggested confidence/assurance. I loved when it indulged silly and absurd humor, like the football coach's stage directions.

The movie didn't really "stick with me" but definitely charmed and entertained.

i guess tuition got too expensive in NYC for Lady Bird :/ https://t.co/sG7T6LBuB4

— m (@myownprividaho) September 4, 2018

She shouldn't have taken that magazine!

wow @mugshotbaes is an obnoxious concept

absolutely but I won't deny I legitimately lol'd at this the moment I caught it

I was yesterday years old when I found out Beanie Feldstein is Jonah Hill's little sister.

you can see it in her face, but yeah, this is not widely known i dont think

oh weird.

this was great. so, so many killer lines