Modern Age - Winter 2018 - 164

Modern Age

*

Winter 2018

In their anger, both Marion and Lady Bird forget that one cannot repay one's parents. According to Aquinas, one owes them
not reimbursement but reverence-which is not the same as
blind obedience. The parent's final, culminating gift is letting go;
the child's final, culminating lesson is learning to be grateful, even
while rejecting some of the things given. Without this exchange,
which must be so much more than merely settling a debt, there'd
be no adults. The film's action is driven by Marion's inability to
give that last gift graciously, making it harder for Lady Bird to
learn how to accept any gifts graciously. Marion isn't as lovable
as the mothers in classic films such as I Remember Mama (1948) or
A Christmas Story (1983). But Gerwig's film accomplishes a harder,
more realistic task than do these films: helping us feel grateful for
imperfect things from which we nevertheless have benefitted.
The film shows gratitude toward parents, friends, and the nuns
and priests who run the school. It shows appreciation toward
Lady Bird's hometown, in its mundane charm, and toward those
people who-even unintentionally-were instrumental in her
growth. Beyond gratitude for benevolence, the film suggests, we
can be thankful for others' errors or mistreatment, provided that
we can turn such things toward the good.
But only after she goes east and gains her independence can
Lady Bird appreciate her dependence, the gifts given. She even
returns to her given name of Christine, musing, "People call themselves names that their parents made up for them, but they don't
believe in God." The following day she wanders into Sunday Mass
and calls her mom to say "thank you." These are the final words of
the film.
Part of accepting adulthood is to reject some of what we have
been given, which may seem ungrateful. Yet this selective rejec164

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Modern Age - Winter 2018

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