Lady Bird (2017)

Holly Christ.

Helena’s Notes:

Note1: “Little Miss Sunshine” was the last indie movie I was foolish enough to sit through with my eyes open. I swore never again, and more or less stuck to my sacred vow ever since. Okay, I did watch “Juno”, “Tangerine”, “Napoleon Dynamite”, ‘Tiny Furniture”, oh and “Sightseers” and “Drugstore Cowboy” and “Before Sunrise” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and fucking “Gummo”, and “Kids” and “The Blair Witch Project” (wtf?), and maybe a few more. Other than that, I don’t do indie.

Note2: So what’s this beef I have with indie movies, I hear you ask. Alright, I’ll tell you: it’s their tone of voice. Precocious yet whiny, patronising yet sincere, liberated yet nostalgic, it’s the voice of people who believe they can get away with literally any crap and I’m really pissed off to say that clearly, they must be right.  

Note3: I kind of know Greta Gerwig from “Frances Ha!”(2012) and “Mistress America”(2015) - guess this would be another couple of indie films I never meant to watch – and I thought I’d give her one more chance. Alas, and despite “Lady Bird” not exactly boring me to death, I’d say Miss Gerwig is fresh out of chances. Which is a pity, cos I suspect this woman could proper roar, only she won’t in case her new east coast chums find it distasteful. But then again, I could be wrong (not).

Totally for real.

Olga’s Notes:

Note1: I rarely choose to watch a newly-released movie, especially if its release is accompanied with a media ding that comes with, say, multiple Oscar nominations. But this year I managed to see three (!) such movies: “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”, “The Shape of Water”, and, last night, “Lady Bird.” I blame the two-4-one Tuesdays at Rye Kino.

Note2: If you read Helena: The Small Town Throwdown and/or Igor: Wrong Place Wrong Time, then you probably know that I have a thing for a good rite of passage gone bad. The novel I’m working on at the moment is another, even darker tale of one such rite of passage. No surprises there. But I was surprised that “Lady Bird” so adamantly refused o give us even a flash of its underbelly. In fact...

Note3: “Lady Bird” is an exceptionally gentle story, featuring remarkably mildly mannered Sacramento boys and girls. Even their mischief was sugarpie sweet, and frankly a bit of a letdown. But then I remembered that this was 2003: not everyone had their own laptop or a personal phone (=cell/mob), and Zuckerberg didn’t launch Facebook website until 4th February 2004. 

One more word out of you, old lady!