52 Films By Women: Lady Bird (2017)
By Andrea Thompson
When Greta Gerwig’s masterpiece “Lady Bird” came out in 2017, it was lavished with much-deserved critical praise, and some record-breaking commercial success, given that it had the highest grossing limited theatrical release by a female director. It also inspired a highly contentious debate, one that seemed entirely beside the point, and often had misogynistic over and undertones. Was the film’s central relationship, that of between the title character played by Saoirse Ronan, and her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf) abusive? Or more accurately, was Marion an abusive parent?