Lady Bird

According to Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), her hometown of Sacramento is like “growing up in the Midwest of California,” which could be because outside of San Francisco and the hot pocket of Hollywood, the vast California pines are where the Okies settled running from the dustbowl. But as is said, familiarity breeds contempt for writer/director Greta Gerwig (Damsels In Distress), whose movie resembles her own life. It’s 2002 and Christine’s father has lost his job as she fantasizes for the greener pastures of going out of state to an East Coast college. “Lady Bird” is her invented independent identity when dealing with Catholic school, all the wrong boys and a life where she’s not much good at much of anything. Gerwig’s concise dialogue is witty and imaginative from the opening bell as the rising and falling moods of mother and daughter recall Kelly Reichardt’s River of Grass, and it only builds from there. Lady Bird won 2017’s Best Picture award from New York Film Critics Circle.

[R]