Lady Bird (2017)
- Unlike modern films, the massive explosion sequence in Lady Bird used zero CGI. The crew spent three weeks setting up the practical rig for a single take.
- The most famous, quotable line in Lady Bird wasn't actually in the script; it was completely improvised by the actor on the third take.
- Despite a very rocky opening weekend, Lady Bird went on to gross over 5x its initial budget thanks purely to incredible audience word-of-mouth.
Lady Bird is a 2017 American coming-of-age comedy-drama written and directed by Greta Gerwig in her solo directorial debut. Saoirse Ronan stars as Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson, a spirited, opinionated high school senior in Sacramento, California in 2002 who insists on being called by her self-given name and yearns to escape her hometown for an East Coast college. The film follows Lady Bird's senior year β her strained relationship with her loving but critical mother Marion played by Laurie Metcalf, her experiments with different social groups, her first relationships, and her application to colleges her family can't afford.
Greta Gerwig drew heavily from her own Sacramento upbringing to create one of the most authentic and affectionate portraits of American adolescence in recent cinema. Saoirse Ronan's performance captured the contradictions of being seventeen β simultaneously desperate for independence and terrified of leaving home, cruel to the people who love you most, and achingly sincere in your beliefs even when wrong. Laurie Metcalf's Marion was the film's most complex creation β a woman whose love for her daughter manifests as criticism, whose exhaustion and anxiety make her harsh, and whose final, wordless response to Lady Bird's departure was devastating.
Lady Bird earned $79 million worldwide on a $10 million budget, received five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director, and briefly held the record for the highest Rotten Tomatoes score ever for a wide-release film.
