Lady Bird

2017 1h 35min

Available on Amazon Prime

A coming of age film set in the mid-2000s, Lady Bird follows the senior year of a student as she resists the soul-crushing conformity of her Catholic high school. Several key themes in this film are deviance, identity, and social class. Lady Bird comes from a working-class family experiencing downward mobility which sets her aside from the more privileged students at her private school. As a result, she periodically attempts to pass as economically-secure, and nowhere is this more evident than in her pursuit of popular friends. The trope of “being true to one’s self” is well developed in this film, and we witness the tensions of identity management in both the private and public spheres. For example, Lady Bird has a very close relationship with her overbearing mother who comes to feel betrayed by Lady Bird's aspirations for social mobility. These parental pressures are mirrored in the rigidity of Lady Bird's Catholic school. Yet unlike most films that morally imply changing oneself is a negative, insincere process, this film refreshingly shows us how embracing difference can be both empowering and destructive. Lady Bird may be able to escape the constraints of her home environment, but this creates much tension as she attempts to transcend her socialization.