Review of Lady Bird (2017) by Rob L — 02 Dec 2017

The main character jumping out of a moving car at the beginning of the movie set expectations too high for this nice beginner director movie. The mother/daughter relationship was okay, and there were things in the middle of the movie that started to really get my attention, such as the back stories of some of the characters.

The family dynamics were good and you found out certain things subtly, such as the late motherhood, the obviously adopted brother, the kind but depressed father. The bathroom as a place of mother/daughter communication was cool but the idea that a middle class ranch house only having one bathroom in Sacramento is silly/unnecessary.

Also, the disjunction between the mother's professional role as a psychiatric nurse and her vaguely crazed behavior at home doesn't make sense, it's too different, way past the "wounded healer" syndrome of most people in psychology/psychiatry, believe me, I know these fields, all to well.

Otherwise, it's kind of a standard "coming of age" high school transition to college movie with nothing really much happening to a middle class, somewhat privileged white girl/woman. There is something done well with the idea of place memory and belonging, however, that did hit home, this is seen in the car scenes transposing mother and daughter, although most scenes were not well framed or imagined.

The general sense is that the movie is almost there, but it's really not that great, you want it to be better, in the mode of "Boyhood" "13" "The Last picture show" Some good bits but just barely worth your time in a big screen movie theater.

Acting was good-ish but almost better than it needed to be.