This past year Greta Gerwig demonstrated to the world, in her directorial debut, her extraordinary ability to convey the angst of adolescence at the cusp of adulthood.   

 Lady Bird is Sacramento native, Greta Gerwig’s comedic and loosely autobiographical film in which she wrote and directed. Gerwig stated that “I tend to start with things from my own life, and then pretty quickly they spin into their own orbit.” The tonality that Gerwig wanted for the film is best described by actor Timothée Chalamet, who played Kyle in the film. He stated that it is “a comedic realism, that serves realism first and comedy second.”   

 The film is set in the year 2002 in Sacramento, California and centers around the life of a seventeen year old girl as she navigates her way through her senior year of high school. The film is filled with various life changing events that stand against humorous occurrences for its protagonist Lady Bird. Although, Gerwig has stated that “the mother-daughter relationship is the central love story.” Lady Bird’s relationship with her mother is a complicated one, as it is for many teenagers. Both mother and daughter are strong-willed, loving, and infinitely opinionated causing them to frequently clash. Through this Gerwig was able to depict an authentically deep connection between the two.

Lady Bird is an incredibly original coming of age story that is comedic, utterly beautiful, and heartbreaking. It most definitely deserves it’s various awards and Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture.