I’ve always been partial to a good mother-daughter story. One of my holy-grail TV shows—and one that I’m in constant effort to get more people to watch—has been the Oughties drama Gilmore Girls (minus the seventh season and the misguided recent revival). But rather than the excessively joined-at-the-hip younger duo that appeared to be the focus of the series for the most part, it was actually the other, infinitely more complicated relationship—that between the 30-something Lorelai and her mum Emily—that I found more interesting. There was so much resentment, ego, hurt, and defensiveness—and yes, affection—roiling between the two; getting to watch the different ways in which all these emotions manifested and clashed and evolved was a big part of the show’s appeal for me. Little surprise then that I very much enjoyed the new Lady Bird, a coming-of-age film directed by Greta Gerwig, premised on a similarly contentious mother-daughter dynamic.

High-school senior Christine please-call-her-‘Lady Bird’ McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) just wants to get out there already. She’s had enough of her hometown Sacramento—what she dubs the “Midwest of California”—because nothing ever happens here, and she’s especially keen on getting away from her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf), whom she can never seem to see eye to eye with. Lady Bird is set on being admitted into an east-coast college, moving somewhere with a bit more “culture”, she says loftily, but her grades at the Catholic girls’ school she attends are just not up to snuff for Ivy-League ambitions: even her guidance counselor gets the giggles reminding her of this. 

Besides, even if Lady Bird were to get in, Marion and her husband Larry (Tracy Letts), couldn’t afford to pay her tuition anyway—the former is already doing two shifts at the hospital where she works as a nurse, and the latter has just been laid off. Marion would therefore like her daughter to consider something in-state and cheaper, but the young girl refuses point blank, and this has become a point of seemingly unresolvable tension between them.

So, we accompany Lady Bird as she slogs through her final stretch of high school, angst-ridden, restless and basically miserable. But even though she claims to hate everything, the year is turning out to be pretty eventful: from landing a part in the school play, to landing a boyfriend, then another one, and finally fitting in with the popular kids, although that means having to leave behind long-time best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein)—it’s packed with milestones. Even though Lady Bird might feel like she’s just biding time until her Real Life begins, it’s clear to us that she’s already living through something pretty darned special. 

Lady Bird is Gerwig’s first solo venture as a writer-director. You might remember the actress from her quirky roles in a number of indie features over the past decade or so—she’s nothing if not memorable, you’ll know what I mean if you’ve seen her perform—but you might not realize that she also shares writing credits on several of these, including 2012’s Frances Ha and 2015’s Mistress America, to name a few, as well as co-directing 2008’s Nights and Weekends with Joe Swanberg. But Lady Bird is the first feature project where Gerwig has had complete creative rein over the material, and all I can say is, I wish it had happened sooner. 

Because even though the film follows the broad and very familiar contours of your typical American high-school movie, Gerwig has injected scenes with so much loving, intimate detail that it comes across as utterly original. Indeed, the specificities of young friendships, courtships and home lives shown here feel so compellingly honest that you can’t help but wonder the extent to which the story is autobiographical—it gives the distinct impression of having been extracted from someone’s real-life memories, added to the fact that, like Christine, Gerwig is also a Sacramento native—but the writer-director has expressly denied any such thing. In any case, she’s created a wonderfully believable world, infused with warmth and humor. 

What also comes through strongly is her affection for these characters, however flawed each may be; she’s been extremely careful not to reduce any to stereotypes, and has allowed them a great deal more complexity than you’d expect. This is especially true of how Metcalf’s character is depicted, as someone who wants the best for her child, but has no idea of the right way to go about communicating that, and now feels like she’s lost control—it’s evident in that flash of regret on her face after each of their many tiffs (watch for a particularly hilarious one that takes place in the car). But even as Lady Bird fumes and rages about being misunderstood by her mother, the film itself is a lot more generous and forgiving towards her. In fact, it’s the same sort of approach that has been taken with the setting: for all of the main character’s bluster about wanting to escape at the first chance, Gerwig drapes Sacramento in lovely, affectionate, nostalgia-drenched glimmers. All this seems like a way of acknowledging the sort of confused feelings we might have for the people and places we grew up with—how our relationships with them are altered by time and distance, and how it’s only in hindsight that we often come to appreciate attentions and attributes that we might have once found suffocating. 

The young Ronan is as terrific as ever, at 23 already a venerable force in the industry. She inhabits Lady Bird’s arrogance and insecurities with hilarious precision, and carries the film on her capable shoulders—I could not name another actor who could’ve done a better job with this. And she’s matched, step for step, by the wonderful Metcalf, who bites into the role with visible relish. The cast also includes a slew of talented others: Feldstein and Letts top among them, as well as Lucas Hedges and Timothée Chalamet as Lady Bird’s two very different suitors, and Lois Smith in a shortlived but effective turn as a kindly nun at the school. 

If this is what she’s able to offer at her first go, I can’t wait to see what Gerwig will come up with next.