Lady Bird is a 2017 A24 film written and directed by Greta Gerwig. The film tells the story of a free-spirited teenage girl named Christine who calls herself Lady Bird and is preparing to go off to college. Lady Bird has a turbulent relationship with her mother and the place she lives in, Sacramento, California. Lady Bird sees Sacramento and all that encompasses it as a prison that she must escape to achieve the greater things she believes she is destined for. The film follows Lady Bird’s journey of discovery and explores what it means to be young and endure the pressures of societal expectations.
The movie’s first frame displays a notable quote on the screen by literary icon Joan Didion who says “Anyone who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento.” This is the first of many points in the film’s duration that draw audiences to Lady Bird’s conclusion that Sacramento is a boring and sleeping town that one only thinks about in terms of how to escape it. As the narrative unfolds, we find Lady Bird straying from her normal “boring” life, in search of excitement and opportunity.
No one chooses who they are born as or what family they are born into.
This is a fact that Lady Bird seems to revel in during the film as she imagines a picturesque life of living in the blue house on the “right” side of the train tracks or being best friends with the most popular girl in school, Jenna Walton. She tries to counteract her family’s financial situation and leads herself into a few lies about her true identity along the way. Through this, she metaphorically strays further away from home even before she leaves for college.
The concept of home remains relevant to college students now and forever as many people dream of escaping their boring home life and experiencing a dazzling new adventure in college. However many learn to appreciate the familiar once they live through what they have always dreamed about. This is what Lady Bird discovers in her first moments in New York when she makes the film-defining choice to go back to her given name “Christine.” This also leads her to reflect on her newfound love for Sacramento when she tells her mom about the beautiful experience she had of driving through the city for the first time.
Throughout the film, the audience finds Lady Bird rebelling against the very notion that she could stay in Sacramento for college and views it as an insult to her potential. However as the plot continues, why does the audience find Lady Bird confessing her love for her first drive through Sacramento?
After exploring the tumultuous realm of youthhood, Lady Bird undergoes a defining journey, finally allowing herself to see the beauty in the place she once begrudgingly called home. On Lady Bird’s journey of self-discovery, the film concludes memorably as Lady Bird moves past her initial contempt for Sacraments, and realizes that her newfound love for her hometown and her dreams do not have to be mutually exclusive.