Review of Lady Bird (2017) by Sumaita H — 02 Oct 2018

I really tried my best to fall in love with Gerwig's debut Lady Bird, but I could not. No matter how much I searched for the affectionate wit infused with the forces of outcast adolescents, I simply could not connect with the movie. Here is the problem with Lady Bird: it depicts a common, coming-of-age narrative that only a certain population can truly relate to. A young white girl going to Catholic school begins to rebel in her small hometown. Several cliches in most high school movies are present-a girl's first love, who ends up being homosexual, the drinking, the weed, losing one's virginity, forsaking an unpopular best friend for a popular one. The outcast girl still ends up getting into a reach college in New York, despite having poor school grades (though she apparently has a high SAT score). Of course the script elevates these cliches, thus warranting the term "fresh" from critics. But is it enough to just add a fresh "new" perspective to a story that people have told before? There is an attempt at adding complexity by making the protagonist come from a low income family, but she is in the lower middle class, while many who struggle to apply to college come from even lower brackets. Critics of course praise the overall female perspective Gerwig uses, which many of today's films lack, in addition to the film's ability to curtail excess histrionicism that such films are prone to exhibiting. However, the minority perspective is still absent.

Hollywood needs a makeover and a new outlet for different voices that express concerns of girls who are not exactly lady birds, but have just as much to say.