Assignment task: Questions from the movie Lady Bird (2017)
Problem 1: In his review for The New York Times, A. O. Scott writes about the movie:
"In tone and structure, after all, this is a teenage comedy. It finds humor in the eternally renewable cycle of senior year: homecoming and prom; math tests and school plays; the agonizing stages of the "admissions process." Along the way, Christine undergoes other, extracurricular rites of passage. She falls in love for the first time and has sex for the first time. She trades in her loyal, longtime best friend (Beanie Feldstein) for a richer, more popular girl (Odeya Rush). She fights with her mother and her older brother, Miguel (Jordan Rodrigues), and leans on her father, Larry (Tracy Letts), an affable fellow with troubles of his own.
You might think you've seen this all before. You probably have, but never quite like this. What Ms. Gerwig has done - and it's by no means a small accomplishment - is to infuse one of the most convention-bound, rose-colored genres in American cinema with freshness and surprise. The characters can look like familiar figures: the sad dad and the disapproving mom; the sullen brother and his goth girlfriend (Marielle Scott); the mean girls and the cool teachers; the too-perfect boyfriend (Lucas Hedges) and the dirtbag boyfriend (Timothée Chalamet). None of them are caricatures, though, and while everyone is mocked, nobody is treated with cruelty or contempt, at least by Ms. Gerwig. (Lady Bird is not always so kind.)"
Please respond to this assertion about the teenage comedy by comparing Lady Bird with another movie in the genre (any John Hughes film, for example) and see if you agree with the claims of the second paragraph.
Problem 2: Lady Bird was commended by many for showing audiences a realistic family and for focusing on its female characters, especially the relationship between the daughter and the mother. Do you think this is important and missing from many films? You might want to use the textbook or reference other movies to help you develop your response.
Problem 3: How would you categorize the male characters in the movie? Identify and analyze two of them and explain their significance in the overall narrative.