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Lady Bird [Screenplay]
A teenager navigates a loving but turbulent relationship with her strong-willed mother over the course of an eventful and poignant senior year of high school.
115 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2017
14 people are currently reading
1966 people want to read
About the author
Greta Gerwig
8 books170 followersGreta Celeste Gerwig is an American actress and filmmaker.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 143 reviews
April 12, 2024
About time I read the screenplay for one of my favourite movies. I adored this, it was even wittier with the scene descriptions. I love you Greta Gerwig! 🤍
November 3, 2021
no sentence has ever hit me the way “in many ways this is a movie about the tests a teenager puts others through as they decide if they are a person worth being” has
January 27, 2022
Even though I have seen Lady Bird 1000000 times there are so many little details I missed that stood out to me when reading the script. Gerwig’s attention to detail is what makes this film so special to me.
For example I love that Kyle is reading “The People’s History of the United States” when Lady Bird sees him at the coffee shop, then next time she sees him (which is at a school chapel service) she brings it out and reads it while the priest is delivering his homily. Ugh such a stupid and delicious move to get the attention of your crush in school (except they never noticed ofc) how dare she get inside my stupid little catholic school head like that!!!
From reading this I also found out part of the scene where she gets her college acceptance letter was cut - initially Lady Bird was also supposed to get a newspaper from the mailman as well and go straight to the obituaries just like her mother does earlier in the film. I think it was such a nice touch and it’s a shame it wasn’t in the final edit of the film because it’s just a gorg little full circle moment showing Lady Bird’s similarities with her mother whilst also revealing that Kyle’s dad ended up passing away from cancer.
HOWEVERRRRRRR I had a big problem with Gerwig specifying that 3 of the female characters were “chubby” or a “bigger woman” - in fact it shits me to tears how unnecessary it was - fucking why?????? Any suggestions welcome on how to alter this in my copy of the book!! maybe I’ll scribble those parts out in my fancy, expensive A24 book and pretend they don’t exist :)))
Anywho I didn’t expect to write this much it’s a bit of a word vomit!! If you’re still reading sorry!! Xx
For example I love that Kyle is reading “The People’s History of the United States” when Lady Bird sees him at the coffee shop, then next time she sees him (which is at a school chapel service) she brings it out and reads it while the priest is delivering his homily. Ugh such a stupid and delicious move to get the attention of your crush in school (except they never noticed ofc) how dare she get inside my stupid little catholic school head like that!!!
From reading this I also found out part of the scene where she gets her college acceptance letter was cut - initially Lady Bird was also supposed to get a newspaper from the mailman as well and go straight to the obituaries just like her mother does earlier in the film. I think it was such a nice touch and it’s a shame it wasn’t in the final edit of the film because it’s just a gorg little full circle moment showing Lady Bird’s similarities with her mother whilst also revealing that Kyle’s dad ended up passing away from cancer.
HOWEVERRRRRRR I had a big problem with Gerwig specifying that 3 of the female characters were “chubby” or a “bigger woman” - in fact it shits me to tears how unnecessary it was - fucking why?????? Any suggestions welcome on how to alter this in my copy of the book!! maybe I’ll scribble those parts out in my fancy, expensive A24 book and pretend they don’t exist :)))
Anywho I didn’t expect to write this much it’s a bit of a word vomit!! If you’re still reading sorry!! Xx
January 21, 2019
greta gerwig is such a talent i love her and this script so much.
June 27, 2023
FUCK U GOODREADS I MEANT TO POST THIS REVIEW AWHILE AGO . GLITCHY ASS 👎👎 anyways
im always sad that i cant watch lady bird again for the first time cuz its my fav n da best movie of all time n i want to reexperience it fresh in my mind so reading the screenplay 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 its an entirely different experience but it def scratched that itch 🥲💔
im always sad that i cant watch lady bird again for the first time cuz its my fav n da best movie of all time n i want to reexperience it fresh in my mind so reading the screenplay 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 its an entirely different experience but it def scratched that itch 🥲💔
March 17, 2019
داستان به طرز بسیار بُلدی بحران های یه نوجوون که میخواد مستقل بشه رو نشون میده.
بالا پایین های احساسات، عشق و تنفر همزمانشون.
ارتباطی که با مادر یا پدرشون میگیرن.
دغدغه هاشون.
تلاش برای مطرح شدنشون.
از طرفی مدرسه مذهبی رو به تصویر میکشید.
تفاوت های اعضای خانواده و هدفهاشون.
خیلی خوب بود.
بعد دیدن فیلم خوندمش؛ بنظرم بازی بازیگر هم خیلی خوب بود.
بالا پایین های احساسات، عشق و تنفر همزمانشون.
ارتباطی که با مادر یا پدرشون میگیرن.
دغدغه هاشون.
تلاش برای مطرح شدنشون.
از طرفی مدرسه مذهبی رو به تصویر میکشید.
تفاوت های اعضای خانواده و هدفهاشون.
خیلی خوب بود.
بعد دیدن فیلم خوندمش؛ بنظرم بازی بازیگر هم خیلی خوب بود.
Read
June 2, 2025lady bird is a movie that is near and dear to my heart. as i read the script, i was astonished by how greta gerwig was able to write a film that so many people could find themselves in.
when i was reading the essays written at the end, i resonated with one particular line in hunter harris’s essay.
“I first saw it, felt like it reframed my entire adolescence. You expect to have a prom night that’s as magical as a John Hughes movie, or at least as raucous as a Linklater movie.”
you envision high school to be so much more then it actually is, and now that i’m at the age they are in these popular high school movies, i fear that i’m missing out.
but with lady bird, it’s so accurate to what actual teenagers go through. i relate to her awkwardness and her desire to experience more.
the ending will never fail to make me sad whether i’m reading it or watching it. when she steps out of the church and calls home. the shots of her hometown, lady bird driving, and then showing her mother driving. that feeling of homesickness is portrayed so well in this scene.
“Around 5:30, when the light is a melancholy tangerine, and the sprinklers just turned off and there’s the perfume of water on the baked concrete. I think she might have had a welling up, a missing, like a gut punch. With a yearning. To go West.”
when i was reading the essays written at the end, i resonated with one particular line in hunter harris’s essay.
“I first saw it, felt like it reframed my entire adolescence. You expect to have a prom night that’s as magical as a John Hughes movie, or at least as raucous as a Linklater movie.”
you envision high school to be so much more then it actually is, and now that i’m at the age they are in these popular high school movies, i fear that i’m missing out.
but with lady bird, it’s so accurate to what actual teenagers go through. i relate to her awkwardness and her desire to experience more.
the ending will never fail to make me sad whether i’m reading it or watching it. when she steps out of the church and calls home. the shots of her hometown, lady bird driving, and then showing her mother driving. that feeling of homesickness is portrayed so well in this scene.
“Around 5:30, when the light is a melancholy tangerine, and the sprinklers just turned off and there’s the perfume of water on the baked concrete. I think she might have had a welling up, a missing, like a gut punch. With a yearning. To go West.”
March 6, 2022
i will never not love this movie, this belongs to the call me by your name soul crushing category
August 5, 2022
unfortunately upon reading this I have discovered that I’m even more similar to lady bird than I thought. greta gerwig reached into my soul and shredded it with a pair of rusty kitchen scissors. but also I’m danny (gay and says all the wrong things)
greta gerwig writes all of her characters with so much love and it’s thrilling to see that come across in both the script and the visual story telling.
greta gerwig writes all of her characters with so much love and it’s thrilling to see that come across in both the script and the visual story telling.
December 17, 2017
Lady Bird will win all the Oscars!! Greta Gerwig be snatching those gold statues like a drag race contestant be snatching wigs. Get it GUUURRRL!
January 4, 2025
Succinct, visual, and so well written! Still made me cry a little 😛😛😛
December 5, 2023
Lady Bird is my Roman Empire & Holy Bible <3 I am sorry to be that basic girl with mommy issues but every year when I revisit this story I am reminded of how seen and understood I felt to be a 17-year-old girl who can never quite get it right with her mother.
But also reading this little A24 book was a reminder that the reason Lady Bird is stunning is because it’s told through all of the small everyday moments. There are no big events. The big event is the yearning to grow up & be loved :,) & learning all of the different ways we show/receive love.
I received this as a birthday gift from Felicity last year and I’m so glad I returned to it even if it was a belated appreciation. & yes I cried twice while reading this
But also reading this little A24 book was a reminder that the reason Lady Bird is stunning is because it’s told through all of the small everyday moments. There are no big events. The big event is the yearning to grow up & be loved :,) & learning all of the different ways we show/receive love.
I received this as a birthday gift from Felicity last year and I’m so glad I returned to it even if it was a belated appreciation. & yes I cried twice while reading this
December 17, 2023
Mixed feelings about this film but the more I read/watch it, I do find some deeper meanings behind the characters' actions which could be written about in the LC exam. Lady Bird herself is quite questionable as she is 18 but still quite naive and lacks empathy for others. However Marion is not unflawed either.
October 10, 2023
Her genius lies in human truth!!
December 27, 2024
"of course I love you." "but do you like me?"
February 27, 2024
Look at me reading screenplays in my free time! Loved this one, flew through it.
Now the only thing left to do is to actually watch the movie I guess lol
Now the only thing left to do is to actually watch the movie I guess lol
July 19, 2021
so many moments of this felt like a gut punch, it's interesting how despite everyone individual experience of growing up that there are so many moments that feel universal? Lady Birds mum is in so many ways my mum, those feelings of growing up, escaping your home town, understanding who you are when you are alone in the world.
SISTER SARAH JOAN:
I read your college essay. You clearly love Sacramento.
LADY BIRD:
I do?
SISTER SARAH JOAN:
Well, you write about Sacramento so affectoinately, and with such care.
LADY BIRD
I was just describing it
SISTER SARAH JOAN
It comes across as love.
LADY BIRD
Sure, I guess I pay attention.
SISTER SARAH JOAN
Don't you think maybe they are the same thing? Love and attention?
SISTER SARAH JOAN:
I read your college essay. You clearly love Sacramento.
LADY BIRD:
I do?
SISTER SARAH JOAN:
Well, you write about Sacramento so affectoinately, and with such care.
LADY BIRD
I was just describing it
SISTER SARAH JOAN
It comes across as love.
LADY BIRD
Sure, I guess I pay attention.
SISTER SARAH JOAN
Don't you think maybe they are the same thing? Love and attention?
December 28, 2017
LADY BIRD
Mom...
MARION
(re: the magazine)
We don’t need to buy that.
LADY BIRD
It’s only three dollars. I’m having
a hard week.
MARION
If you want to read it we can go to
the public library.
LADY BIRD
I want to read it in bed.
MARION
That’s something rich people do.
We are not rich people.
3.5*
Mom...
MARION
(re: the magazine)
We don’t need to buy that.
LADY BIRD
It’s only three dollars. I’m having
a hard week.
MARION
If you want to read it we can go to
the public library.
LADY BIRD
I want to read it in bed.
MARION
That’s something rich people do.
We are not rich people.
3.5*
January 22, 2024
Biased because I grew up outside of Sacramento, but this is peak coming of age work and Gerwig’s such a phenomenal writer.
Was fun to read the screenplay after having already seen the movie multiple times. Frames would flash by in recognition of the translation from page to screen.
Gerwig’s characterizations are so swift and impactful inbetween the dialogue.
“When she’s not resenting the stuckness of her own life she has an enormous capacity to love it”
“She gets all R&B songs ever written in one moment”
The accompanying materials and presentation of the book itself make this a pretty cool piece.
Also, this line is said in the film, but stuck out even more this time around for me:
“Money is not life’s report card”
Was fun to read the screenplay after having already seen the movie multiple times. Frames would flash by in recognition of the translation from page to screen.
Gerwig’s characterizations are so swift and impactful inbetween the dialogue.
“When she’s not resenting the stuckness of her own life she has an enormous capacity to love it”
“She gets all R&B songs ever written in one moment”
The accompanying materials and presentation of the book itself make this a pretty cool piece.
Also, this line is said in the film, but stuck out even more this time around for me:
“Money is not life’s report card”
October 1, 2024
this year, I read the script instead of watching the film. thought it would be a nice change, and I wanted to connect with these characters as deep as I possibly can
it's interesting how your perspective changes as you get older. I used to think I relate to this so much because my mom doesn't like me either, and there's nothing I wish more than studying far away from my family, living where culture is. I guess that's inevitable when you grow up in a small town, seeing the same places and encountering the same people. I'm 20 now, and I live in a college town that I care so much about... but it never seems to care about me back. the people here are amazing and I love them, pay attention to them (because aren't they the same thing? love and attention?) but I never really felt that I was being loved. and it's not really anyone's fault either, I just.. you can't force people to love you when they don't
but my mother, and the people in that town I wanted to get away from so much, has shown me so much love in so many different ways I could never imagine. it's so hard to see that when you're so focused on getting out. I guess Lady Bird saw that too, when she called her mother after her first day in college. it's so hard to find a place that you belong to, truly, earnestly, but I first belonged to my mother's womb, and maybe her presence is the place I have always been searching for all along. I told her I loved her today, it's been years since I last said that; and I do, I really do
it's interesting how your perspective changes as you get older. I used to think I relate to this so much because my mom doesn't like me either, and there's nothing I wish more than studying far away from my family, living where culture is. I guess that's inevitable when you grow up in a small town, seeing the same places and encountering the same people. I'm 20 now, and I live in a college town that I care so much about... but it never seems to care about me back. the people here are amazing and I love them, pay attention to them (because aren't they the same thing? love and attention?) but I never really felt that I was being loved. and it's not really anyone's fault either, I just.. you can't force people to love you when they don't
but my mother, and the people in that town I wanted to get away from so much, has shown me so much love in so many different ways I could never imagine. it's so hard to see that when you're so focused on getting out. I guess Lady Bird saw that too, when she called her mother after her first day in college. it's so hard to find a place that you belong to, truly, earnestly, but I first belonged to my mother's womb, and maybe her presence is the place I have always been searching for all along. I told her I loved her today, it's been years since I last said that; and I do, I really do
January 9, 2018
Watched the movie twice. Then read the script.
Mainly, I'm trying to figure out why I don't like this movie. Trying to figure, like my life depends on it.
Why don't I like this movie? Why do I cringe reading the script?
The movie is so sporadic, and not in a good way. It never ties together, not with the mother motif and not with the Sacramanto motif. None of these two are actually fleshed out. Lady Bird is fleshed out, but not fully. She needs more room to develop.
I love Greta Gerwig's writing, and I love Soirse Ronan's acting. Ironically, these two were the basic reasons I couldn't connect to Lady Bird. Greta's writing comes off as really immature, and hasty- which I know it isn't. Maybe she was in a hurry to take this movie out. Ronan's acting is less flawed, but again hasty, artifical.
I don't get the hype, and I don't care about the hype. I just wanted to love Gerwig's first born, and I didn't, and I'm sad.
Mainly, I'm trying to figure out why I don't like this movie. Trying to figure, like my life depends on it.
Why don't I like this movie? Why do I cringe reading the script?
The movie is so sporadic, and not in a good way. It never ties together, not with the mother motif and not with the Sacramanto motif. None of these two are actually fleshed out. Lady Bird is fleshed out, but not fully. She needs more room to develop.
I love Greta Gerwig's writing, and I love Soirse Ronan's acting. Ironically, these two were the basic reasons I couldn't connect to Lady Bird. Greta's writing comes off as really immature, and hasty- which I know it isn't. Maybe she was in a hurry to take this movie out. Ronan's acting is less flawed, but again hasty, artifical.
I don't get the hype, and I don't care about the hype. I just wanted to love Gerwig's first born, and I didn't, and I'm sad.
December 26, 2017
*4.75 stars.
"What if this is the best version?"
July 28, 2022
I want this book injected into my veins.
December 31, 2023
“What if this is the best version?”
August 16, 2024
the letters were my personal highlight.
November 22, 2023
I really enjoyed this
April 3, 2025
Les photos, le script, les articles, tout est chef kiss (merci maman)
April 23, 2025
I have never been less normal about a film in my life and spending time with this gorgeous screenplay book only reinforces my delusions. Girls and their mothers...
Lady Bird: I just wish... wish that you liked me.
Marion: Of course I love you.
Lady Bird: But do you *like* me?
Lady Bird: I just wish... wish that you liked me.
Marion: Of course I love you.
Lady Bird: But do you *like* me?
January 23, 2022
watch the movie ❌
read the screenplay instead ✅
read the screenplay instead ✅
August 14, 2024
"DANNY
(nodding)
Your mom is crazy. I’m scared of her.
LADY BIRD
(suddenly defensive)
She’s not crazy, she’s just, she has a big heart. She’s very warm."
so lovely
(nodding)
Your mom is crazy. I’m scared of her.
LADY BIRD
(suddenly defensive)
She’s not crazy, she’s just, she has a big heart. She’s very warm."
so lovely
Displaying 1 - 30 of 143 reviews