Death in Venice (1971)

Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) tells her mother (Laurie Metcalf) that she wants to live through something — something that matters. I think a lot of people feel that way in their lives. Looking out the window today, we are living through something. We’re living through an incredible period of anguish and horror. At the same time, however, we’re living through a period of time where people are standing up for what they believe in and fighting back against those who would so readily take everything away from them.

So, Lady Bird, if you thought 2002 was uneventful, just wait until 2020.

Greta Gerwig’s 2017 coming-of-age film, Lady Bird, was just released on Netflix, and is also streaming on Amazon Prime. Nominated for five Academy Awards, the movie centers on a seventeen year old high school senior who has a rocky relationship with her mother and tries to figure out who she is before she enters the next stage of her life.

This was one of my favorite movies of 2017, and it only gets better the more I watch it. It’s quirky and funny, but it also has an incredible amount of character depth. It is a really powerful coming-of-age story, which is one of my favorite genres of film. It clearly comes from a place of authenticity, capturing the uncertainty and confusion that accompanies this time in a person’s life.