Any teenager transported to post 9/11 Sacramento - Anne of Green Gables, Kevin Arnold, Arnold Jackson, any - might behave something like Saoirse Ronan's character in Lady Bird, a complacent work-averse Sacramento teenager coming of age and wanting so badly to escape reality (her family's financial straits, her mother's discipline, and the tiresome realism of school nuns) that she bestows upon herself the made-up name Lady Bird, lies to friends about living in a mansion and acts sophisticated about the topics of sex and drugs even though she is a novice in both areas, and the problem with this amiable, perfectly entertaining movie is that so might any teenager act the same way - even those NOT transported to post-9/11 Sacramento, because there is not much that is remarkable about this particular journey into adulthood and nothing especially interesting about its context.
★★★☆☆
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