(She left her) Lady Bird

Major spoiler warning (although it’s been out for four months, so I think it’s fair game now)

For a long time, I thought I hated comedies. Happy endings seemed predictable, and the humor seemed corny and cliche. It felt like I was rewatching the same movie over and over again. I remember haphazardly going into Lady Bird with low expectations, but I was blown away. I realize now that it isn’t really comedy’s fault its genre is plagued with poor concepts and poor execution.

Lady Bird, which also is the self-given name of the movie’s protagonist, follows the story of a high school senior in Sacramento, California who dreams of more. Although she’s not the best student, Lady Bird dreams of going to Columbia or NYU. Although her family’s not the most wealthy, Lady Bird tells others she lives at one of her favorite high end homes. She ends up falling in love with a popular theater kid and joins the program, seeking him out.

True to life, everything does not go Lady Bird’s way. She receives rejections from all of her New York schools except one, which waitlists her, the popular girl she was trying to befriend finds out the house Lady Bird claimed was hers isn’t, and when she finally gets the boy of her dreams, she finds out he’s gay. Basically, her life seems to fall apart throughout a bunch of moments (very teenage like).

Lady Bird’s self-redemption begins when she leaves her “too-cool-for-school” (literally) crew for her true friend. The two go to prom and embrace their inner goofiness. Upon receiving her acceptance off the waitlist, Lady Bird flies off to New York with no goodbye from her mother who is furious that she applied to expensive out-of-state schools behind her back. Her father sends her packet of unfinished letters from her mother, which detail her love and regrets. Lady Bird then binge drinks in the post-mortem of her old angsty teenage self and begins using her birth name. The movie ends with a wholesome call between Christine (Lady Bird) and her mother.

What makes Lady Bird so special is its indescribably accurate portrayal of human interaction and emotions. It dares to be open and genuine in moments that bring laughter and thought. Unlike other movies, comedies have to take much more precaution when dealing with heavy-handed issues. It’s a lot easier to be reflective or deep when the ending isn’t a happy one. A comedy, in order to achieve its original intentions, must be perfect if it wants the same impact as a movie about something more severe than teenage emotions. Comedies excel when they are able to reveal something personal. Lady Bird is one example in which a movie is able to pry into the viewer and make them feel vulnerable, and it achieved that through human-like nuance. In that sense, Lady Bird truly practices what it preaches. We are reminded to be genuine and true to ourselves through a movie that uses genuine interactions to convey its message.