Greta Gerwig

Snarcasm: Lady Bird Is Far From Perfect, So It’s Bad

Lady Bird

Warning: the post you are unfortunately about to read is filled with snark and sarcasm, known to many of you as Snarcasm. Please refrain from taking anything said here seriously, because as usual, none of it actually matters at all.

Those of us who put an extraordinary amount of hopes and dreams into Rotten Tomatoes had our hearts crushed recently. You see, a movie can only be good if an arbitrary percentage of arbitrarily chosen tastemakers arbitrarily place said movie on an arbitrarily designed spectrum. And so it is for Lady Bird, one of the most successful indie films of all time and until the release of Paddington 2, the best reviewed of all time according to a website that brings vegetables into a literal equation.

What soiled the 100% rating for Lady Bird on said vegetable counter platform? Well, none other than someone you’ve never heard of. Cole Smithey rated the film a gentleman’s C+, just barely putting the film under a “fresh” rating for Rotten Tomatoes.

What does this mean? Not much, except that we now have a chance to roll our eyes at someone’s alleged opinion. Surely, this is an honest review and not one designed to draw attention to an unrecognizable website few would bother to read a review from unless it was the sole contrarian in a sea of praise and released weeks and weeks after every other critic published their review. Surely.

Go on…Snarcasm: Lady Bird Is Far From Perfect, So It’s Bad

Lady Bird: Understanding What Makes A Film Good

Lady Bird

Our lives are a string of incidental situations, or events. Some of these events are caused by other events. Many events are indistinguishable from coincidence. They appear chaotic and might as well be.

I found myself thinking a lot about structured chaos while watching Lady Bird. It was only after the credits rolled that I clicked with director/writer Greta Gerwig’s “point,” so to speak. That she desired to bring about meaningful change in Lady Bird’s life through both choice and conflict. Not much else.

There’s a reason why critics adore this movie. And I also suspect there will be some general audiences who disagree with the praise. This is because there are some among even the most fervent filmgoers who measure the quality of a film by its trappings. The dialogue. The cinematography. The performances. These are all important, of course, but they don’t amount to much removed from what the events onscreen  mean. Understanding this is the first step to “getting” objective film criticism as a whole. Even if you don’t necessarily agree with it.

Go on…Lady Bird: Understanding What Makes A Film Good