Lady Bird and the Nature of Ephemeral Nostalgia

It's difficult to talk about Lady Bird without sounding like a complete lunatic.


Lady Bird is Greta Gerwig's treatise on middle-class American adolescence in the post-9/11 world. Gerwig, having grown up in that time period, is herself the product of those tenuous years when it seemed like the world was falling apart around her. That being said, Lady Bird is breezy, grounded, and disturbingly local - almost as if what's happening outside the town of Sacramento hardly matters. Instead, what does matter are the things which make this story great: its characters.

We follow one Lady Bird McPhearson. "Lady Bird" is her given name, not because it was given to her at birth, but because she gave it to herself. Her real name is Christine, but hardly anyone calls her that during the film. Lady Bird is a unique soul, but kind of a case study of how the "manic pixie" type doesn't really amount to much in real life. She has terrible grades, no appreciable talent or skill, low prospects for jobs or colleges, and overall lives an incredibly mediocre experience on the "wrong side of the tracks" in Sacramento.

She spends her days gallivanting with her best friend Julie in rich neighborhoods, looking at all the houses that she wishes she could move into someday. Lady Bird dreams of New York City ("or even Connecticut"), the places where writers are born and impart upon the world their great works. The world she imagines is implacable, ephemeral. Unreal.

It's hard to articulate why this movie is so emotionally affecting, but I think the basic bones are clear. It plays to our deep-seated inadequacies, reminding us of all of our various failings and bringing to the surface memories of everything we've done wrong. But it's not a depressing film; hell, it's not even a cynical one. Lady Bird mixes in those themes with lightheartedness and a great deal of humor. This is a movie that has a real soul, that manages to have big arguments between mothers and daughters with real stakes, but at the same time, also plenty of scenes of Lady Bird and her theater friends enjoying each other's companies at post-show after parties.

Lady Bird gives me nostalgia for a life I forgot I had, and it hit me at the right (wrong?) time in my life. I was a theater kid, I had depressive episodes, I had thoughts and feelings of uselessness (still do). Yet, she overcomes it all. She gets to do what she wants, even if it isn't necessarily the best thing in the world to do. Yes, she goes to college in New York City. She does it because she wants it. She becomes her own person, well and true, and she gets to drop the act. She stops being Lady Bird because she doesn't need to be Lady Bird anymore. "Christine" gets to be who she is.

Scared. Lonely. Insecure.

Homesick.

Just like me.

The theater was my life. Regis High School, my home. The Regis Repertory, my family. Everything about my identity was wrapped up in that place, in Regis. There was a time when I hadn't been so fond of it, when the commutes and the stress had become too much. Just like Lady Bird, I'd have arguments with my parents in our car. Yelling and yelling and yelling about grades and irresponsibility.

"I want you to be the best version of yourself," says Lady Bird's mother.

"What if this is the best version?" asks Lady Bird, to silence.

That was me. That is me. Nothing's changed about me, just the scenery. I go to Fordham now, not by choice, much as Lady Bird didn't want to go to UC Davis. It's too close, too familiar. I wanted to go elsewhere, be someone else. Have the chance to do everything I never got to do. Be my own man. Lady Bird got what she wanted, it seemed, why couldn't I?

But, as it turns out, maybe Lady Bird was right. Maybe Greta Gerwig was right. Maybe home isn't so bad. Maybe running away from the place that raised you, turned you into the person you are isn't the greatest idea in the world. Maybe you can forge a new path in the place that destiny's plopped you down. Maybe responsibility can be chic.

Hell - call me K-Robe, why don'tcha?