Tag: Lady Bird

Little Birdie vs Big Fish, who’s going to win?

Posted on by victorfraga

As forecast in the Bible’s The Book of Samuel, the time old story of David and Goliath is applicable to all most everything in life. Specifically, in the 2018 Oscar race, the contenders for the coveted Best Picture award appear to be a binary “big vs small”. Both The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro, pictured below) and, to a lesser extent, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh) operate within a certain sphere of atypical Oscar films; they possess marketing, star and pulling power towards Oscar voters and audiences.

Granted, at its heart Three Billboards is an anti-establishment piece about over asserting masculinity, this notion still applies through the heavy lifting required by the cast along with the tragi-comic writing of director Martin McDormand. Leading the way when it comes to the betting man’s wager, Del Toro’s The Shape of Water sits at 6/4, with McDormand’s Three Billboards at 5/6 (at the bookies). Although such a betting man cannot justly be trusted, it speaks volumes that after their clean sweeping at Bafta two weeks ago, the two are evidently the front-runners.

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The little ones fight back

The antithesis, Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig) produced by indie darlings A24, is a film as far away from ‘Oscar fodder’ as one can get, unlike Darkest Hour (Joe Wright). Greta Gerwig – after years of working with her partner Noah Baumbach – has crafted a universal love story of mothers and daughters, unanimously adored by anyone with a beating heart. Comparable, before smashing the box office, Get Out (Jordan Peele) wasn’t on anybody’s raid, with it sweeping up audiences and critics in the racial concept of the ‘sunken place’. Eliciting a growing divide in the film industry’s production, these smaller films, on paper, are fish out of water, unlike the aquatic The Shape of Water.

In these four films (The Shape of Water and Three Billboards vs Lady Bird and Get Out), it’s clear there is a divide in this year’s Oscar race, big vs small, compared to previous year’s saturation of Oscar bait pieces i.e. The King’s Speech (Tom Hooper, 2010), The Imitation Game (Morten Tyldum, 2014) and American Sniper (Client Eastwood, 2015). With the Time’s Up/#MeToo movement and eradication of Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Oscar bait releases, see Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002), the widespread love for something such as Lady Bird (pictured below), with Jordan Peele’s personal representation of race, yields the ability to defeat the Goliath’s it up against, showing the cinema is a universal language.

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Just the same old beast?

In a break away from the reality of her Baltimore apartment, Eliza’s (Sally Hawkins) world in The Shape of Water momentarily turns into an MGM musical stage. At the centre of this stage, she dances with her Amphibian Man in a moment of nostalgic magic-realism. Outlining the film’s desires to pluck on the heartstrings of its viewers, as La La Land (Damien Chazelle) did to great effect last year, this break from reality alludes towards the swooning romance at hand. Cloaked as an inter-species relationship, the one at hand in Del Toro’s film is as heteronormative as that of Gosling and Stone’s in Chazelle’s smash hit, spawning musical adaptations worldwide.

Though it has been hailed as subversive for its adult themes, with having a mute central character, it’s still a big fish operating in a big pond, simply from viewing the crucial romance. My criticism is not to discredit the engaging performance of Hawkins or the level of loving craft deployed by the film-makers, still, one cannot help but feel we have seen film’s comparable scoop Best Picture previous.

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Learning from history

Distinctly contrasting, Lady Bird and Get Out hold little comparison to previous year nominations or winners; they are unique pieces. After widening the scope of what truly is the Best Picture winner, Barry Jenkin’s Moonlight demonstrated that the little birdie can indeed soar high above the bigger fish of the Oscars. Previous to this, the first female Best Picture winner, Kathryn Bigelow repeated a similar feat in 2008 with The Hurt Locker (pictured below), outmuscling James Cameron’s Avatar. In a recent interview on A24’s podcast, Greta Gerwig and Jenkins sat down to discuss one another’s works. In that discussion, it became clear that what is so fundamental to Lady Bird is its acute eye for what constitutes home. Granted, far from an autobiographical film of Gerwig’s youth, the narrative, characters and milieu, all come from somewhere special in her writing.

On a related note, Jordan Peele’s extended metaphor for racism in the contemporary US distinctly comes from a place of idiosyncrasy to him, broadening and becoming applicable to a wider demographic of African-American audiences. Yet, the emotional tapestry that is embedded in Daniel Kaluuya’s character, it produces empathy from any perspective.

The emotion of empathy extends not just to Get Out but the Bafta juggernaut Three Billboards. Taking five awards, it is hard not to see a similar occurrence occurring this Sunday in the writing and performance categories, minus Oldman. The Guardian recently reappraised the director, stating ‘McDonagh has long coaxed comedy from the friction between the idiotic, the unthinkably painful and the bana’l. Holding a greater deal of admiration towards the film than of The Shape of Water, it is trying to ignore the undeniably heavyweight acting of McDormand, Rockwell and Harrison. Simply in this regard, it is a Goliath.

In a world filled with the strangest of political happens and a post-Moonlight world, the Best Picture category appears to be a changing one. Regardless of the outcome on Sunday, this slow change has the potential to filter and permeate the mindset of voters and The Academy itself; leaving the most famous awards ceremony in the world as a pillar of filmic and societal diversity.

Lady Bird

Posted on by victorfraga

As one grows older and poignantly ponders life, thus far, it’s hard not to think about the place and people with whom you grew up. To some, the thought of their hometown sends shivers down their spine. Whereas with others, their love for it is devout. Confusingly mixed somewhere in the middle, Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) seeks a level of independence that comes with leaving home for college. Searching to do so her hometown Sacramento (California), in 2002, the themes of Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut Lady Bird steep themselves in the companionship that comes in family and friendship. Not only does Gerwig construct one of the year’s best films, it’s one of the most self-assured and poignantly crafted movies ever made on the touching intimate connections we as humans have with place, people and a certain period in our lives.

Working as a semi-autobiographical solo debut for Gerwig, who is only 34 years old, her film has little room for any unnecessary clichéd romances, disasters or melodramatic tones. Bestowed with an adoring aura towards its characters, working under the likes of her long-time partner Noah Baumbach and Whit Stillman has imbued her writing with a dexterous and unique tone edge.

A name given to ‘me by me’, Lady Bird is an assured young woman eager to get into a cultured East coast college ‘like Yale but not Yale’. Played by Saoirse Ronan with an alluring vitality, she lives on ‘wrong side of the tracks’ with her mother (Laurie Metcalf), father (Tracy Letts) and brother (Jordan Rodriguez). In Christine’s relationship with her family, one sees the daily struggles and joys portrayed in a manner so detailed and nuanced they clearly come from an emotional place in Gerwig’s heart. Opening with both Christine and her mother, Marion, returning from visiting a local college, whilst listening to an audio tape of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Lady Bird hilariously and dramatically decides to jump out of the car after a short argument. Through such a decision, Ronan’s character is bestowed with a comic and rebellious nature.

At the bottom of her high school’s social hierarchy, with her best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein), the two girls embrace everything about one another. After auditioning for musical theatre together, Christine sees the charming Danny (Lucas Hedges) perform, consequentially deciding to romantically pursue him. A juxtaposition to a formulaic ‘chick flicks’ relationship, their time together is infused with little charms and ticks which fill with their young love with a warmth and affection. After dating Danny, her eyes move towards a more rebellious boy in the form of Kyle (Timothée Chalamet), who consumes himself in philosophical books, rejecting capitalism and plays in a hip band. Nonetheless, his cool aesthetic absorbs the heart of Christine.

Selecting to set her first solo film in the early noughties offers some biographical information on Gerwig’s youth; hearing Justin Timberlake’s era-defining ‘Cry Me a River’ and David Matthew Band’s ‘Crash Into Me’ fills one’s eardrums with happiness. Still, Gerwig’s material foregrounds the distinctive tone of the era; a generation of school kids before mobile phones, snapchat and Kim Kardashian. Similarly, Lady Bird wishes she was living through something – which in fact she is. A post 9/11 world, referenced in a split second shot of a wall mural and TV News, is historically the basis for contemporary Trump America and futile conflicts in the West. Though a nostalgia for a false sense of pastness is inherent in all of us, we all live through something important and pivotal in history.

In her press junkets, the director has frequently discussed casting actors who can ‘hit home runs’ (or a six if you prefer cricket). Specifically, in the casting of Laurie Metcalf as Marion and likewise Tracy Letts as her father, the emotional weight of Lady Bird’s familiar ties rest in their interactions with Ronan. Metcalf taps into an assertive mother who simply wants the best for her daughter, displaying it through a form of tough love. In a delicate line of dialogue which explains Marion’s mother ‘as a violent alcoholic’, Gerwig’s dialogue elicits a whole backstory for Marion, accentuated by the acting ability of Metcalf. Granted the two clash, as any family members do, yet the fundamentals of their relationship is love. In the instance of Letts, he is one of a small number of male figures present in Christine’s life. What he brings to Mr Larry McPherson is a tactile sense of vulnerability and world-weariness, with an undying tenderness for offering support.

Behind the camera, cinematographer Sam Levy creates sumptuous moments with natural lighting, equally filling the frame with the same tender affection displayed in performance and dialogue. Lady Bird feels as though it is constructed by a director at the top of their game, not just starting out. Its charming writing – complemented by Saoirse Ronan and the casts – naturally instils Gerwig’s awkward and lovable screen persona into her directorial solo debut. If I existed in this world, I would indeed vote Lady Bird for President- as she would so want.

Lady Bird has been nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture. It is out in cinemas on Friday, February 16th. On Netflix in February 2020.