Saoirse Ronan - Lady Bird [268 points / 27 votes]
“Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird presents us with a teenage heroine who, simply put, has quite a lot of chutzpah. From applying to East Coast colleges in spite of her mediocre academic performance to ingratiating herself with a popular, rich classmate by pretending she lives in a beautiful, blue house in Sacramento’s Fabulous 40s neighborhood, Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson goes after what she wants, often worrying about working out the pesky details later.
“In the titular role, Saoirse Ronan renders Lady Bird’s pluck and foolhardiness with great comic timing and a jaunty charm. We marvel at Lady Bird’s unabashed confidence, for instance, in an early scene where she introduces herself to would-be suitor Danny (Lucas Hedges), blindsiding him in a grocery store with a hilariously delivered ‘Come here often?’ as she extends her arm for a handshake. This effervescence that Ronan naturally projects in such scenes serves as a poignant contrast to the dramatic moments she shares with Laurie Metcalf. Both actresses instinctively portray the loving but contentious relationship between this somewhat blindly idealistic teenager and her overly practical mother with remarkable precision and depth. The interwoven tenderness and resentment felt by these two women emanate as much from their silences and body language as they do from their spoken dialogue, as we see in the scene where Lady Bird, from behind the door of a thrift shop fitting room, tells Marion, ‘I wish that you liked me.’
“In this briskly-paced, 94-minute film, it is a testament to Ronan’s charisma as a performer that she conveys the many complex, at times unflattering, facets of Lady Bird with both nuance and economy. It also helps that Gerwig has populated her film with well-drawn supporting characters, many of whom have their own unspoken backstories and sustained moments, whose experiences Ronan draws from in such a way that fulfills her character’s own story arc, allowing us to see Lady Bird evolve from a place of self-absorption to one of empathy and self-awareness.” ~ Kevin Dufresne
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