Lady Bird - The Limitations Of The Teen Drama
Quick Thoughts: Lady Bird (2017)
A naive teenager on the cusp of adulthood starts to become more self-aware.
Lady Bird is, in many respects, just another teen drama, coming of age picture. It does, however, re-stylise this genre with realism and honesty which actually sees one of this narrative's major points be, you aren't James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause, just as much as you aren't Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles. However, in focusing the scope of its commentary and in building a pretty unique character and putting her on a somewhat unique journey, this film was lost on me. Whilst I see its virtues and felt I gripped all of what was attempted to be said - this is a film about finding yourself and reconciling with the roots that you are trying to escape, and thus the rebellion that builds adolescence - I simply couldn't connect with what was going on or be at all affected by the story. The mistakes that our main character makes are obvious, just as much as her journey is a pretty ridiculous one, which leaves this film on the constant precipice of cliche. And though there may be an honesty about this embrace of naivety and the mistakes many of us make, I didn't care for the way in which they were portrayed, nor their stringing together.
Quickly realising that this was going to be a film with a character whose conflicts didn't resonate with me, I didn't decide to check out with the hope that, despite there being no present allegorical truth that I felt, there would be a more general or idiosyncratically striking truth to be found. But, approaching Lady Bird as objectively as I could manage, I failed to learn much. This was then an unfortunate disappointment and a film I can't say is particularly special. However, maybe this will work better for others. So, with that said, have you seen Lady Bird? What are your thoughts?
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A naive teenager on the cusp of adulthood starts to become more self-aware.
Lady Bird is, in many respects, just another teen drama, coming of age picture. It does, however, re-stylise this genre with realism and honesty which actually sees one of this narrative's major points be, you aren't James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause, just as much as you aren't Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles. However, in focusing the scope of its commentary and in building a pretty unique character and putting her on a somewhat unique journey, this film was lost on me. Whilst I see its virtues and felt I gripped all of what was attempted to be said - this is a film about finding yourself and reconciling with the roots that you are trying to escape, and thus the rebellion that builds adolescence - I simply couldn't connect with what was going on or be at all affected by the story. The mistakes that our main character makes are obvious, just as much as her journey is a pretty ridiculous one, which leaves this film on the constant precipice of cliche. And though there may be an honesty about this embrace of naivety and the mistakes many of us make, I didn't care for the way in which they were portrayed, nor their stringing together.
Quickly realising that this was going to be a film with a character whose conflicts didn't resonate with me, I didn't decide to check out with the hope that, despite there being no present allegorical truth that I felt, there would be a more general or idiosyncratically striking truth to be found. But, approaching Lady Bird as objectively as I could manage, I failed to learn much. This was then an unfortunate disappointment and a film I can't say is particularly special. However, maybe this will work better for others. So, with that said, have you seen Lady Bird? What are your thoughts?
Previous post:
Thor: Ragnarok - Marvel Mythology?
Next post:
Good Morning - The Silent Fool
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
