The peculiar thing about coming of age movies is that you'll never know how close to home they hit until you've passed the age the characters are coming to. Lady Bird is a film directed and written by the upcoming Greta Gerwig- it surrounds Christine McPherson ( AKA Lady Bird) and her ups and downs with her relationships with people in her final year of high school. From girl talk to sex to prom to college, the film is painfully realistic in its style, script, and character development.
Starring Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird proves to be for women by women; no exaggerated curves or manic pixie dream girl elements. That being said, there is a lot we can talk about when analyzing the movie. I've heard a great many people state that they didn't enjoy the film at all, while others gush on and on about things like filming technique, character development, the script, the quiet feminism, the politics of 2002-
To me, this time piece paints a perfect diagram of human relationships and what we consider to be "love". Two major scenes make this explicit; the scene in which Lady Bird and her mother go prom dress shopping, and the daughter asks her mother whether her mother likes her. "Of course I love you," is her reply, to which Lady Bird replies with "But do you like me? [....] I wish you liked me."
The second scene is when the principal of her catholic private school talks to her about her college admission essays, where she states that Lady Bird "loves Sacramento very much." Upon hearing this, the audience definitely let out a little laugh; half of the main character's personality is built on absolutely despising her hometown, and the other half is built on wanting to go far, far away from it.
This is where the principal states that the amount of attention she gives Sacramento is a testament to her adoration of the place.
The concept of Like VS Love, Attention = Love, and Attention =/= Understanding is explored and highlighted in every relationship Christine develops in her life.
While her mother gives practically all her attention to her daughter, she fails to understand almost everything about her, which leads to conflict. Her mother notices the little things, wrinkles in clothes, dragging feet, even her emotional pain without a word. That being said, she has never once truly understood what her daughter's thought process was like, or why she wanted to do the things she wanted to do. Putting all her attention into her daughter and not seeing her daughter give back the same amount of attention is another issue what throws rocks on their road; lady bird is very obviously ignorant to major situations in her own household, such as her father struggling with depression and later losing his job. She didn't know that her mothers mother was an abusive alcoholic, which seems like a pretty big fact a daughter should know. This lack of attention on lady bird's part drives a wedge between the pair as much as the mutual lack of understanding they both have for one another.
She also couldn't tell her first boyfriend, theatre nerd Danny, was gay. Most of the audience picked up on it the moment he stated he was too respectful to touch her chest- either Lady Bird genuinely believed men could be that respectful, or she was busy living in her fantasy made up of the perfect boyfriend.. and eventually the perfect house. Either way, her blindness to key characteristics in the people she had relationships with his her biggest weakness; following the theme of the movie, this could mean that she 'liked' people a lot more than she genuinely loved them, pushing us to really acknowledge the character of a teenage girl just trying to figure out where it was she fit in. Testing the waters, trying to like them before pulling herself out of one pond to another.
One thing that gets her constant attention, down to the train tracks running on the ground, is her home town, Sacramento- the one thing she's explicitly expressed hate for multiple times. Her obsession with leaving only highlights her understanding of the town itself; this is the one thing she is completely thorough with. This is where we see someone love something without liking it. By the end of the movie, of course, we do see her soften up and comprehend the whole "won't miss it till you leave" drama everyone is always talking about. She uses her newfound acceptance of Sacramento to bond with her mother; this bonding only happens after a segment of time away from each other.
You might say that negative attention cannot be classified as love- which would make sense to an extent, but how does one really define love to begin with? What Gerwig has done is create a framework for the relationships and emotions in her film to work within- by operationalizing the definition of love as attention, she has allowed her character (and audience!) to question their own personal take of Love. Is it not attention to detail? Is it not the recollection of little things? Is it not the time and effort that goes into simply seeing what others do not? This is where we start our own personal analysis of positivity and negativity and how much we allow these titles to effect how we perceive our connections to others. I think this film contains the perfect execution of realistic relationships within family and friends, as well as provides a 'for women by women' stance on coming of age. Watch the movie, think about it. How do you show love?
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