Could it be that all the dithering oh-so-New York hipster characters Greta Gerwig has portrayed over the years were just a warm-up act for her emergence as a sharp-eyed, sensitive filmmaker?
Watching the coming-of-age comedy “Lady Bird,” Gerwig’s assured and utterly winning debut as a writer-director, it’s hard to answer anything but “yes.”
Christine McPherson (played by Saoirse Ronan) is a 17-year-old living in Sacramento, Calif. (Gerwig’s hometown), “on the wrong side of the tracks” from the Catholic high school she’s reluctantly attending. Christine — who insists everyone call her Lady Bird — knows she’s destined for better things, if only she can escape the stifling existence of Catholic education and living in Sacramento.