makena’s review published on Letterboxd:
don’t you think maybe they are the same thing? love and attention?
passive aggressive parents that act out of love, college admissions essays, friendship bracelets, first kisses, packing up the belongings in your childhood bedroom, crying on the phone with your mom. Lady Bird perfectly encapsulates adolescence. or mine, at least. it also bookmarks two important periods of my life: december of 2017, and right now, the end of 2019, my first semester of college. at the end of 2017, i had just started online school and i was the happiest i had ever been for that very reason (out of context, some important things from this moment in time are the day that it snowed in texas, the band grouplove, and this specific emoji combination: 🤠💓🌹🌹, none of this is really important, but it is to me). i remember watching Lady Bird for the first time in theaters on new year’s eve and holding my mom’s hand during the final monologue; we cried together in the car on the way home and gushed about how much we loved each other. throughout my senior year of high school and after i graduated, i watched this as a means of emotional preparation for moving away from home. i had never been more scared about anything in my life, and through that fear i formed a new attachment to this movie. today, it’s been almost four months since i moved and since then i, like Lady Bird, have uncovered a love for my hometown that i didn’t previously know i held. i’m the happiest i’ve ever been, even though i’m still going through a lot, and when i think about my time here so far i can’t believe that i almost didn’t come. right now is my Lady Bird (out of context, some important things from this moment in time are radiohead, the colors red and orange, 10:05, and this movie—so meta!). my friends at school lovingly tease me, saying that i’ve made my love for this film a personality trait. it makes me laugh, and in the context of this movie it makes me appreciative because it shows that they are paying attention, that they love me.
