dianeand

Liked this, but wasn't in love with it. Perhaps part of the problem was trying to "hear" all the dialogue--some of which seemed mumbled and some of which seemed lost in young actors' lack of clarity. I very much liked Laurie Metcalfe as the mother--she portrayed so well the overbearing mother who herself is misunderstood. We know enough about her own formative years of abuse to counter her "toughness" --along with another character's testimony that she had a "good heart."The love-hate relationship rang very true and was painful at times, but still very real and not overdone. I think the audience found her a little unforgivable but I felt more for her than for the teenaged daughter. Saoirise Ronan certainly captures the highs and lows, the moments of deceit and triumph, of a young person. She filled the role well. I missed two thirds of what Timothy Chalamet needs to learn to enunciate--I truly was disappointed in losing so much of what he said. On the other hand Lucas Hedges was outstanding in all respects. The contrast could not have been more clear--and his moment of "confession" and "apology" to Lady Bird was a true moment of teenage anguish. I'd like to watch it on my own tv with closed caption on--I think I just missed too much.

I don't get it. This film to me doesn't rate the accolades certain critics have been throwing at it, and it doesn't deserve the nominations it has been getting. Mind you, I went to see this film expecting to love it. I'd read several reviews, all positive, and expected to see something special. I did not. After half an hour I was bored and wanted to leave. I love a complicated film, and certainly this was. I love good acting and certainly I couldn't fault the performances --though at time I failed to understand what certain actors were actually saying. But I kept waiting to be engaged in the film, to love something or some character--to just love the complicated plot twists and constant thinking of just who was conning whom. In the end I just did not care. In the end what I decided is that the film just had no soul. There was no character who deserved my applause, just no character on whose side I wanted to be on, just no connection at all. Both my companion and I just looked at each other when the film was over and expressed our puzzlement. We just did't get why others thought this to be a great film. It is not.