This is a Movie Recommendation

Lady Bird is unequivocally the best coming-of-age film of the decade. (Change my mind.) No, but seriously, it’s the best one.

Lady Bird breathes new life into the coming-of-age genre, which has largely been on the decline since end of the “teen drama” phase of our middle school years. (John Green, anyone?) Despite being a dramedy about a seventeen-year-old girl living in California, the film is anything but a cliché. It’s quick-witted, funny, and confident in its delivery – a lot like the character of Lady Bird herself. The color palette is weirdly calming, and every shot feels solid and intentional. This isn’t to say that Lady Bird is without its flaws, but it’s one of the only films written/directed by a woman to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, and that’s a definite plus in my book.

More than that, though, Lady Bird is a film that highlights a lot of the smaller, more intimate truths of adolescence. Unlike a lot of other coming-of-age films, Lady Bird isn’t flashy – it’s set in the school year of 2002-2003 in Sacramento, which feels a lot like a sunnier, more conservative “suburbia” version of Urbana. (Be warned – I’ve never actually lived in Urbana, so this judgement is largely uninformed and may be completely wrong. I’m sorry if I offended any Urbana people.) Christine McPherson, who goes by the self-designed moniker of “Lady Bird”, yearns to get out of her sleepy town for college: “I hate California, I want to go to the East Coast. I want to go where culture is like New York.” Although while our desires may not be as snobbishly stated as Lady Bird’s, I feel like wanting to leave is a common sentiment among a lot of the students here, especially those who haven’t lived here their whole lives. No offense meant to lovely Champaign-Urbana, but the pull break free to a big, “cultured” city is something I’ve definitely felt while living here.

            Lady Bird is also a film that’s centered on family, which is something that often takes a back seat in a lot of teenage dramas. Although Lady Bird does have many romantic experiences throughout the film, the main relationship is the one between her and her mother. They’re both a little contrary and relentlessly stubborn, so they end up butting heads very, very often. At the end of the day, though, the bond between them always endures. Lady Bird’s mother, Marion, is always there for Lady Bird when she really needs her, and you can tell that Lady Bird loves and cares about her mother the most. No matter what they go through, Lady Bird and Marion always end up forgiving each other, which I think is a really nice portrayal of the endurance of family.

            Although I wouldn’t say that my relationship with my own mother is as tumultuous as the one seen in the film, it was still really nice to see an authentic-feeling mother-daughter relationship on screen. Coming-of-age films tend to be centered on a male adolescent experience (which is maybe to be expected, as most film directors/screenwriters tend to be male), and even when the main character is a female, the focus is always on being validated by a romantic relationship. Think of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Mean Girls, and the ever-infamous The Fault in Our Stars – all of them are about romance and/or high-school friendship, the apparent pillars of teenage-dom. The troubles of family tend to get ignored a lot in films relatable to our age, so it was really refreshing to see this aspect of “teenage-dom” reflected in a movie.

            Basically, I think Lady Bird is a must-watch film for everyone who is/has ever been a teenager, especially if you are/have ever been a seventeen-year-old girl. TL;DR, go watch Lady Bird. It’s really good.