Women in Film: 2018 Best Actress Characters - 4

So far this month, we’ve looked at three out of the five roles that have netted their actresses an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Today let’s focus on the role that I found to be one of the two best of the year: the role of Lady Bird [Christine] McPherson in the film Lady Bird.

First, can we talk about this title? Nearly everyone I know thought that it was going to be about Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of President Lyndon Johnson. So I’m not sure the title did the film any good. And it wasn’t that creative or that evocative of anything in and of itself. But it was quirky, as was the main character, so maybe that was the raison d’être for the title.

Lady Bird was written by its director, Greta Gerwig. It tells the story of a senior in high school who has dreams of getting out of Sacramento and going to college back east. She’s thwarted in these dreams by her mother [another fabulous female character this year] who wants her to stay in California, nearby. And it’s not just college that this mother and daughter disagree on, they have a love/hate relationship that goes from clothes to money to responsibility… this is a terrific duo.

One of the wonderful things about the character of Lady Bird is that she’s not all one thing—she’s not perfect, she’s not always right, she’s not a bad daughter, she’s not the perfect daughter, she’s not depressed all the time, she’s not happy all the time… this is a character who is coming of age on all levels. From her virginity, to her envy of people richer than she, to her desire to leave her hometown, to her fights with her mother, to the things over which she bonds with her mother, Lady Bird is a fascinating character.

How many times have we seen the battling mother/daughter relationship on film? You’re watching the movie and you can almost write the scene in your head before it happens—the daughter is annoyed by the mother and finds a way to lash out at her, leading to shouting, tears, or slammed doors—or all three.

When Lady Bird and her mother, Marion, have a bit of a fight in a department store, they’re looking at dresses and are sniping back and forth and then mom pulls a dress off the rack and Lady Bird says she loves it. Now, in your average film, the daughter would be so angry at her mother she wouldn’t even look at anything her mother picked out. But here, in that moment when Lady Bird loves the dress her mom chose, you know there is a real bond between the two—no stereotypes for them!

Stereotypes. One would think not much new could be said about mothers and daughters—but by presenting a real mother/daughter relationship, Lady Bird gives us two women devoid of stereotypes. They surprise us. Again and again. This is great writing.

Copyright © Diane Lake

25Feb18

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