LADY BIRD (2017) was Greta Gerwig’s first writer/director feature, with Saorsie Ronan and Roseanne’s Laurie Metcalf as a Sacramento teen and her mother. They love each other but drive each other crazy (it reminds me of the romance cliche that the person you fall for appears to be the Most Obnoxious, Most Irritating Person You’ve Ever Met) as Ronan navigates first crush, first sex (“I liked dry humping better.”), college applications and hiding her working class roots from her school friends. All the material is familiar but it’s well done so I don’t care; I particularly enjoy this is low-key rather than constant high drama. ”Let’s name our star Claude.”
TURNING RED (2022) is the charming Pixar feature in which a confident thirteen-year-old Chinese-Canadian freaks out on discovering she’s been hit with her matrilineal heritage of transforming when excited into a ginormous were-panda (the director cites the panda-shifter of Ranma 1/2 as an influence along with the magical girls of Sailor Moon). This leaves her terrified that she’ll be outed as a freak, or that worse, her overprotective mother will never stop smothering her. Then it turns out the other kids in school think this is the coolest thing ever, but that brings on a whole boatload of new problems …
Like Lady Bird a lot of this feels like familiar coming-of-age stuff but it’s done with such warmth and imagination and with such charming characters, it doesn’t matter — I loved this. Though sometimes the protagonist’s embarrassment was so painful I had to look away from the screen (I have that reaction to what my friend Ross calls “comic embarrassment” a lot). With Sandra Oh as the voice of the Mom and James Hong as a Chinese mystic. “I like boys, loud music — and gyrating!”
Surprisingly TYG has never seen LABYRINTH (1986) so that became our date night movie last weekend. Jennifer Connelly plays a teenager who coccoons herself in fantasy and fairytale reading. When her parents insist she babysit her little brother so they can go out, it seems perfectly whimsical and harmless to call on the Goblin King to take him away. Unfortunately the king (David Bowie) was listening … Now all Connelly has to do is enter his realm, make her way through the title labyrinth to his castle, survive assorted traps and recover her brother. Simple, right?
The combined imagination of Jim Henson and British fantasy artist Brian Froud make this a visual treat that I’ve enjoyed multiple times. It’s less TYG’s cup of tea than mine, but she still loved it, so yay. “You wouldn’t be so brave if you had ever smelled the Bog of Eternal Stench.”
#SFWApro. All rights to images remain with current holders.
