Lady bird

Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. The French philosopher Simone Weil wrote often of attention as a kind of spiritual discipline. “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity,” she wrote In a Q&A following a festival screening of her masterful solo directorial debut Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig quoted Weil, and it’s clear from the film that this spirit of faith, love, generosity, and attention animates the whole endeavor. Lady Bird is a coming-of-age film starring the great Lady Bird is an act of attention, and thus love, from Gerwig, not just toward her hometown of Sacramento but also toward girlhood, and toward the feeling of always being on the outside of wherever real life is happening. vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark The movie also confirms what movie lovers have long suspected: Gerwig is by far one of the most talented filmmakers working today, both onscreen and behind the camera, confident and winsome in a way nearly unparalleled by her contemporaries. Lady Bird is the rare movie that manages to be affectionate, entertaining, hilarious, witty, and confident; it’s one of the best films of 2017, and certainly my favorite. Lady Bird chronicles on...

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about “ life into such a condensed stretch of time. A blisteringly paced 93 minutes that distills its heroine’s senior year of high school down to its greatest hits, this coming-of-age story somehow manages to make even its most peripheral characters feel like real people, their hopes and hardships continuing to exist long after they’ve flitted away from Lady Bird’s attention. From Lady Bird’s parents, to the priest who runs her school’s drama program, to the pretentious douche who pops her cherry (and even to his cancer-stricken dad), you could imagine Gerwig devoting an entire movie to virtually any member of her cast. In fact, that generous sense of humanity is one of the biggest reasons why this movie works so well, as “Lady Bird” tempers its protagonist’s teenage egocentrism by allowing us to see what she can’t. This is a story that’s told through a very particular lens; it’s not always the lens we would have chosen, but it’s the one that Gerwig gave us. It’s a good one. To Lady Bird, the world is only as wide as what she can see at any given moment, and she looks at it through a spotlight that shines on just one person at a time; the moment when she first sees Kyle playing with L’Enfance Nue (completely forgetting that Danny is standing right next to her) is so cringe-worthy because we all kinda lost our object permanence at that age. One of the great joys of this film is being reminded that everybody could be a bit narcissistic, but...

Table of Contents Show • • • • • • Greta Gerwig’s 2017 breakout film Lady Bird garnered praise, accolades, and a coveted spot amongst the most beloved coming-of-age films of all time. In her senior year of high school, the story of a teen girl desperate to escape her hometown for college and her tumultuous relationship with her mother resonated with many. With honest and raw depictions of first love, friendship fights, and a backdrop of early 2000s Sacramento, a strong and tight screenplay, and outstanding directing, Greta Gerwig, who wrote and directed the film, transformed into a Lady Bird deserves a spot amongst the Joker, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Pulp Fiction get worshiped by male-dominated audiences. Some of these male viewers praise and even admire the main characters despite their obvious toxic behaviors and actions. A few different female-centered films saw themselves bestowed with the ‘Joker for Women’ title, including Midsommar, Gone Girl, and Promising Young Women. When many Twitter users noticed Lady Bird amongst these titles, they quickly grew confused. Lady Bird as a character is no saint, sure, but she never framed anyone for murder, sacrificed an ex-boyfriend to a cult she’d later be brainwashed into joining, or even laid a finger on anyone. Lady Bird’s titular character is selfish, immature, and downright flawed, but she needed to be those things in order to change and grow into the woman we see right before the credits roll. Is Christine/Lady Bird Sel...

In Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig reveals herself to be a bold new cinematic voice with her directorial debut, excavating both the humor and pathos in the turbulent bond between a mother and her teenage daughter. Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) fights against but is exactly like her wildly loving, deeply opinionated and strong-willed mom (Laurie Metcalf), a nurse working tirelessly to keep her family afloat after Lady Bird's father (Tracy Letts) loses his job. Set in Sacramento, California in 2002, amidst a rapidly shifting American economic landscape, Lady Bird is an affecting look at the relationships that shape us, the beliefs that define us, and the unmatched beauty of a place called home.

Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that Lady Bird is the directorial debut of popular indie actress Greta Gerwig, who tells a semi-autobiographical story based on the time between when she finished high school and left for college (Saoirse Ronan plays the character based on Gerwig). It's a wonderful, funny, touching,… a little The main character is smart and nuanced, but she's also a bit of a troublemaker and a scatterbrain; she gets poor grades, but she very much wants to get into college, and she works hard to make this dream come true. Sympathetic portrayal of a gay character who's still dealing with the complexities of coming out. • Violence & Scariness An older teen has sex for the first time. She sits on top of her partner; he moans and finishes quickly. No graphic nudity, nothing sensitive shown. Fairly brief shot of photos from Playgirl magazine include male full-frontal nudity. Teen kissing, both between same-sex and opposite-sex pairs. Innuendo and flirting. Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide. Close • Language Teens smoke pot, cigarettes, and cloves. Teens drink alcohol; in one scene, a teen girl gets so drunk that she goes to the hospital. Prescription pills (for depression) are used. Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide. Close • Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that Lady Bird is the direc...

Saoirse Ronan’s character never explains why she begins calling herself “Lady Bird” in the Oscar-nominated film of the same name. Born Christine McPherson, Lady Bird decides to embrace the new moniker to the chagrin of her mother and community. In the beginning, when a teacher at the Catholic high school she attends asks Lady Bird if that’s her given name, she retorts, “It was given by myself to myself.” Though Lady Bird never explains what made her choose the unique name, its history dates back centuries. In 1674, the Oxford English Dictionary Romeo and Juliet (1597), Shakespeare writes, “What Lamb, what Ladie bird / … Wher’s this girle?” A ladybug was then called a “cow-lady” or “ladycow.” But by the end of the 17th century, “ladybird” was used as a term for the family of colorful beetles spread widely throughout Britain and parts of the U.S. Most famously, the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson chose the name Lady Bird when a nurse told her parents, “she’s as purty as a lady bird” after her birth in the rural community of Karnack, Texas, in 1912. In fact, Gerwig later realized that she had the name in her head because she’d once read the mid-18th century Mother Goose nursery rhyme, “Ladybird ladybird.” Though the exact rhyme varies, Gerwig cites the version that goes like this: Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, Your house is on fire, Your children shall burn! The rhyme also appears to have been the inspiration for the 1994 drama film Ladybird, Ladybird. Gerwig, when d...

Many inspirational and relatable messages are embedded in these Lady Bird quotes we’ve rounded up, so take your time combing through every single one! When we sail through life, we encounter both rough and smooth seas. Before we reach our final destination, we must learn how to navigate the waters, steer our ships, and who we truly are. Our identity is the anchor that holds us stable through the never-ending waves that come. Similarly, our family makes up the ship that keeps us safe, dry, and comfortable through life’s storms. Unfortunately, Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson believed she didn’t have any of these things. She was lost and didn’t understand who she was, and she had a complex relationship with her mother. These topics make Lady Bird a coming-of-age movie through and through. It allows us to follow her journey as Lady Bird, her ups and downs as she discovers more about herself, and her reconnection with her mother. Dive deep into our collection below and learn some lessons to live by. Make sure you list the quotes that impact your mindset the most! And don’t forget to check out these Best Lady Bird Quotes 1. “Just because something looks ugly doesn’t mean it’s morally wrong.” – Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson 2. “Some people aren’t built happy, you know.” – Julie Steffans 3. Sister Sarah Joan: “You clearly love Sacramento.” Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson: “I do?” Sister Sarah Joan: “You write about Sacramento so affectionately and with such care.” Christine ‘Lad...