Lady Bird is this year’s coming-of-age BP nominee. Despite the fact that it features teenage drinking, drug use, and sex, it does create an interesting dialogue about parent-teen relationships. More than that, though, Lady Bird is about identity: what makes each of us who we are? Is it our names, our places of origin, what crowds we roll with, or something else entirely? Parts of this film are quite clever—especially the banter between the mother and daughter characters—but other sections come across as a bit ridiculous (the end of the film is particularly unsatisfactory).

Why It Might Win BP

In racking my brain for a reason why Lady Bird could be the next film to be placed on my BP shelf, the main thing I could come up with was that the movie reminds me a bit of Gilmore Girls (though darker), which was more than a little popular in its day (and even nowadays). There is something endearing about Lady Bird’s (the character) interaction and struggle with her parents. Plus, the acting isn’t bad, and the script can even be termed “delightful” at a few parts.

Why It Might Not Win BP

To me, there is not really anything that especially sets Lady Bird apart from other films of the same genre. It’s the tale of a poor-ish, odd-ish girl trying to find her way into adulthood, and I think I’ve seen more than a few films with that storyline. Ultimately, Lady Bird is not going to be able to compete with an emotional rollercoaster like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri—a mother reeling from the murder of her teenaged daughter trumps a mother struggling to let her daughter grow up, in this case.