Parting, they say, is such sweet sorrow. A lesson learned by the self-proclaimed Lady Bird aka high school senior Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) in this painfully funny and at times intensely moving coming-of-age drama by writer and director Greta Gerwig who injects proceedings with her trademark kookiness as displayed in recent films such as 20th Century Women, Jackie and Frances Ha for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe.

Sweet because she is flying the nest in sleepy Sacramento and moving to “where culture is” to take her place at a liberal arts college in New York. Sorrow because she is swapping the familiar for the unknown, the security of childhood for the responsibility of adulthood; leaving behind friends and family in the shape of her BFF Julie (Beanie Feldstein), doting if depressive father Larry (Tracy Letts) and rock-cum-brick wall of a mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf, whose rare but impressive appearance on the big screen has deservedly earned her an Oscar nomination, along with Ronan for Best Actress and Gerwig for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay).

Though it is the relationship between mother and daughter which lies at heart of Gerwig’s bright and breezy script, the working title of which was unsurprisingly Mothers and Daughters. Marion wants Christine to be “the very best version” of herself that she can be, yet like most parents finds it difficult to let go. The farewell scene at the airport in particular raw with emotion, but brutally realistic, as she struggles to accept that her maternal apron strings have been severed for good.

Marion, meanwhile, is kicking against the confines of adolescence like a filly in a horsebox. Desperate to fit in with the too-cool-for-school crowd headed by the sultry Jenna (Odeya Rush) and smouldering Kyle (Timothée Chalamet) to whom she loses her virginity, yet equally desperate to stand out from the squares boxed in by their straight-as-a-die upbringing in the grid city of Sacramento, Marion longs to “live through something” rather than the tumbleweed of 2002 which she describes as having only one interesting feature in being a palindrome.

The fearless excitement with which she looks to the future is in stark contrast to the increasing trepidation shown by her “just about managing” mother who works double shifts at a psychiatric hospital and “just happy to be anywhere” father who is struggling to make ends meet on “the wrong side of the track” of the American Dream after being made redundant. But look to the future she must as towards the end of the film she seizes the reins of her life, takes a sharp intake of breath and, like the migrant workers in the audio recording of The Grapes of Wrath which she and her mother listened to upon returning from a college tour, hits the road in search of a different if not better life.

Director: Greta Gerwig
Writer: Greta Gerwig
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts
Peter Callaghan
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