Indie favorite Greta Gerwig makes her solo directorial debut (she and Joe Swanberg worked on Nights and Weekends together) with Lady Bird. The comedy-drama stars Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn) as a Catholic school student who repeatedly comes to blows with her mother, played by Laurie Metcalf (Horace and Pete). It’s not that they don’t love each other, it’s, as her father (Tracy Letts) explains, that they both have “such strong personalities.”
Based on the trailer, which you can watch above, Lady Bird looks like A24’s stunning 20th Century Women, except with a mother and daughter. Gerwig’s presence, even if she’s not on screen, is still felt (it must be the hair). “None of the things that happen in the movie literally happened to me,” she told the Los Angeles Times, “but they all rhyme with the truth. I think I always have to start from some emotional truth and build out from there.” Metcalf certainly knows a thing or two about gutting emotional truth.
Here’s the official plot summary.
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.
