Reply to Topic
As most of you probably know, Ladybird made headlines over the past couple weeks as being one of the most critically acclaimed movies ever. It had a streak of 160 something positive reviews before someone gave it a negative review (same person gave Toy Story 3 a negative review), and the movie has earned its director and the lead actresses significant praise.
I, however, didn't particularly care for this movie. At all. I can say with certainty I wont go out of my way to watch this movie ever again if given the chance to do so.
Now this isn't necessarily a bad movie or a controversial one, and I have to mention I'm not an evangelical christian which is what drove me to hate on this movie (The main attends a christian high school and does several things/hold several beliefs that evangelical christians would strongly dislike). My problems with this movie revolve entirely around the aspects of the movie itself, namely the plot.... The movie is a hyper-realistic account of a girl's journey from High school to post-high school, 'hyper realistic' meaning that it avoids many of the cliche's that plague coming of age movies that center around drugs, friendships, relationships, going to prom/homecoming/a dance/a party. The movie is bare-bones an account of a girl going from high school to college. This is one of the the most realistic coming-of-age movies centered around a character I've seen in a while.
The problem is that the realistic life of a typical high school senior is still incredibly boring.
This not builds up to anything. There's no central 'goal' that all the events of the movie are connected to or building up to. Events in the movie happen, and the movie continues to just chug along, with those events holding almost zero effect on the rest of the movie.
I'd rather a movie challenge or poke fun of a cliche of the coming-of-age genre and offer a unique and interesting take on something that people are already familiar with. Ladybird avoids those cliche's entirely (at least cliche's about what the movie builds up to, there are still several cliche's it commits with character construction), by picking an incredibly boring route that no one has attempted before most likely because it was too boring to be worth exploring.
There are other ways this movie could have gone that would have made it FAR more interesting. Ladybird does not have a good relationship with her mother, as you can tell throughout the movie. The mother is borderline abusive, blunt, and suffocating in a parental type of way that most people could somewhat relate to. A movie exploring how a toxic mother-daughter relationship can be fixed by the characters involved would be a very thoughtful idea to explore, and 'Edge of Seventeen' did that itself even though that movie was geared more towards being a comedy.
The acting itself is good enough. There are two scenes towards the end I think are very well acted, one involving Ladybird, one involving her mother. For the rest of the movie though, just about anyone could have played the roles just as adequately. The leads have been praised for their performances in this movie but I will not remember them 2 weeks from now. In fact I was far more fascinated by the performance of the drama teacher in the movie, Stephen Henderson. Henderson had more interesting stories worth exploring and more emotional performances in the 3 minutes he was on screen than anyone else did in the whole movie. I wished the movie was about HIM to be honest. There is a saturation of coming-of-age movies in today's world thanks to the explosion of the YA genre, but when was the last time a defining teacher-centric movie came out? The last one I can remember was 'Fist Fight', a completely forgettable 'comedy' starring Charlie Day and Ice Cube that was almost insulting more than anything else.
In summary:
- I feel the movie was lacking direction and was not building up to anything.
- As realistic as the movie is in terms of its story, it was still quite boring to sit through
- The performances of the leads were above-average at best
- While I don't think this movie is necessarily a bad movie, I still find it pretty forgettable and wont remember much about it 1 week from now
- There are other Coming of Age movies I enjoyed far more than this one, which as cliche'd as they might be still approached those cliche's in new and interesting ways, whereas Ladybird avoided cliches of the coming of age genre entirely by having the movie not build up to anything at the end of the day.
Plot and Writing: C
Cast and Characters: B
Editing and Effects: B-
Overall Satisfaction: C
Final Score: C+
Video review of the movie here for anyone interested:
I, however, didn't particularly care for this movie. At all. I can say with certainty I wont go out of my way to watch this movie ever again if given the chance to do so.
Now this isn't necessarily a bad movie or a controversial one, and I have to mention I'm not an evangelical christian which is what drove me to hate on this movie (The main attends a christian high school and does several things/hold several beliefs that evangelical christians would strongly dislike). My problems with this movie revolve entirely around the aspects of the movie itself, namely the plot.... The movie is a hyper-realistic account of a girl's journey from High school to post-high school, 'hyper realistic' meaning that it avoids many of the cliche's that plague coming of age movies that center around drugs, friendships, relationships, going to prom/homecoming/a dance/a party. The movie is bare-bones an account of a girl going from high school to college. This is one of the the most realistic coming-of-age movies centered around a character I've seen in a while.
The problem is that the realistic life of a typical high school senior is still incredibly boring.
This not builds up to anything. There's no central 'goal' that all the events of the movie are connected to or building up to. Events in the movie happen, and the movie continues to just chug along, with those events holding almost zero effect on the rest of the movie.
I'd rather a movie challenge or poke fun of a cliche of the coming-of-age genre and offer a unique and interesting take on something that people are already familiar with. Ladybird avoids those cliche's entirely (at least cliche's about what the movie builds up to, there are still several cliche's it commits with character construction), by picking an incredibly boring route that no one has attempted before most likely because it was too boring to be worth exploring.
There are other ways this movie could have gone that would have made it FAR more interesting. Ladybird does not have a good relationship with her mother, as you can tell throughout the movie. The mother is borderline abusive, blunt, and suffocating in a parental type of way that most people could somewhat relate to. A movie exploring how a toxic mother-daughter relationship can be fixed by the characters involved would be a very thoughtful idea to explore, and 'Edge of Seventeen' did that itself even though that movie was geared more towards being a comedy.
The acting itself is good enough. There are two scenes towards the end I think are very well acted, one involving Ladybird, one involving her mother. For the rest of the movie though, just about anyone could have played the roles just as adequately. The leads have been praised for their performances in this movie but I will not remember them 2 weeks from now. In fact I was far more fascinated by the performance of the drama teacher in the movie, Stephen Henderson. Henderson had more interesting stories worth exploring and more emotional performances in the 3 minutes he was on screen than anyone else did in the whole movie. I wished the movie was about HIM to be honest. There is a saturation of coming-of-age movies in today's world thanks to the explosion of the YA genre, but when was the last time a defining teacher-centric movie came out? The last one I can remember was 'Fist Fight', a completely forgettable 'comedy' starring Charlie Day and Ice Cube that was almost insulting more than anything else.
In summary:
- I feel the movie was lacking direction and was not building up to anything.
- As realistic as the movie is in terms of its story, it was still quite boring to sit through
- The performances of the leads were above-average at best
- While I don't think this movie is necessarily a bad movie, I still find it pretty forgettable and wont remember much about it 1 week from now
- There are other Coming of Age movies I enjoyed far more than this one, which as cliche'd as they might be still approached those cliche's in new and interesting ways, whereas Ladybird avoided cliches of the coming of age genre entirely by having the movie not build up to anything at the end of the day.
Plot and Writing: C
Cast and Characters: B
Editing and Effects: B-
Overall Satisfaction: C
Final Score: C+
Video review of the movie here for anyone interested: