Truly great directorial debuts come once in a blue moon. Your Welles, Truffauts, and Tarantinos are such rare and unexpected successes that their arrivals helped define their respective cinematic generations. But now in 2017 we have not one, but two phenomenal debuts. The first came early in the year with Jordan Peele's Get Out. Now we have Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird, a devastatingly funny, true, heart-breaking, and uplifting film about a young woman desperate to leave her hometown of Sacramento for the cultural oasis of New York City. Of all the things in this movie, I was particularly struck with how it didn't short-change the protagonist's religious upbringing. Yes, there were parts of it that were oppressive and puritanical, but the vast majority of the religious figures were kind and sincerely helpful. Also, the scene where she goes to the church in Manhattan? Perfect.
8/10
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