Lady Bird (2017) ***

So this is one of the movies everyone was buzzing about this awards season. The semi-auto-biographical, coming of age tale is written and directed by actress (now director) Greta Gerwig, and stars Saoirse Ronan. Lauded by critics, the film won Best Comedy at the Golden Globes and earned an Oscar nomination. All the critics seemed to agree this movie was AMAZING! I was skeptical, though. I had a feeling this would be just another story about a quirky outsider who has a fraught relationship with a parent, dealing with the tricky teen issues of friendships, sex, and finding her identity, and it turns out I was right.

Saoirse Ronan plays Christine, a teen who has decided to go by the name Ladybird. For Ladybird, renouncing her given name is a way of distancing herself from her family, their modest financial circumstances, and her town of Sacramento, which she feels has no culture. Her family really isn't all that poor; she just goes to a fancy private school (on scholarship), where most of the kids have fancy cars and big houses, which she does not. Ladybird is bright but lazy, and her grades don't support her dream of getting into an East Coast liberal arts college. Neither does her mom, who tends to be pretty hard on the girl. When the guidance counselor tells Ladybird, “It's my job to help you be realistic,” Ladybird says, “Yeah, that seems to be everybody's job.”

Ladybird goes through the usual stuff, experimenting with sex and drugs, and feeling sorry for herself. As befits her callow age, she is completely oblivious to everyone else's problems. She falls for a guy in her theater class, and is bummed when her chubby friend, Julie, gets the juicy role opposite him, complaining, “Now you get to be all romantic with Danny on stage.” When Julie replies, “Yeah, that's realistically the only chance I'll get to do that,” Ladybird is totally unmoved by the pathos of Julie's life as the less attractive friend. This pattern repeats itself again and again, as Ladybird focuses on her own disappointments, failing to see that everyone has a struggle.

This is, of course, very realistic for a girl her age. “Lady Bird” is full of realistic touches, from Saoirse Ronan's visible acne, to the hot girl at their school, who isn't objectively all that hot.

The key relationship in the film is that between Ladybird and her mom. As with many teenage girls, it's a rocky one. Marion (Laurie Metcalf) is pretty critical of her daughter, and she often vents her general frustrations on her. Ladybird is just a callow teen, un-driven as a student, and insensitive to the hurt she inflicts on her parents by being so obviously ashamed of their small house and modest car.

There is really nothing not to like about “Lady Bird,” except perhaps for the slightly clunky ending, which I actually liked. It's an ending that doesn't wrap things up in a neat package, with Ladybird suddenly becoming a better person or having the perfect life. This is an ending that makes clear that this is still the same girl, with the same issues, but starting to grow up a little.

It's an enjoyable movie, but I can only explain the outsized hype surrounding it as sexism. With the Me Too and Time's Up movements going on, this is an Up With Women kind of year, and everyone in Hollywood wants to celebrate movies made by women. It's a laudable instinct, but it has led to virtual canonization of what is really a pretty basic girl's-coming-of-age movie. There are any number of better, more memorable films from this genre, including "Me Without You"  and "An Education".  Once this year's hype dies down, “Lady Bird” will still be worth checking out, but I doubt we will still be talking about it in 10 years.

3 stars out of 5