The year 2017 was a time of flourishing for the indie movie scene, and while the top charts were still dominated by the usual suspects—Marvel superheroes, Star Wars, Stephen King horror— a handful of indie movies reached them as well. A common topic for the indie movies that year was coming-of-age, which was explored particularly well by the high-grossing-hit Lady Bird directed by Greta Gerwig, and the significantly less popular (but cult followed) Columbus directed by Kogonada. Although the two films feature many similarities, the differences between the protagonists highlight opposite issues and challenges, though for one central event: coming-of-age.

On one side, we have Lady Bird—someone who subscribes to the optimistic American image of college. It’s freedom; liberation from home, your nagging parents, your dusty old suburban small-town! In college, Lady Bird wishes to fulfill what she has been trying to do in high school: to remake herself by throwing off her given name, her old social status, her family’s effect on her image and her character. As she says herself, she was born “on the wrong side of the tracks.” Except, repeatedly throughout the movie, she finds that life on the other side, the so-called “right side of the tracks,” is not so fulfilling to her. In the end, she regrets going to college, and she must reconcile with her past, her home, her faith and her family—because they are her.

On the other side, there is Cassandra—a high-school graduate and a homebody who, despite her academic aptitude for architecture, is emphatically rejecting any opportunity that takes her away from her hometown and her mother. She has friends, hobbies, and is wholeheartedly invested in caring for her mother—so why should she leave? However, when her relationship with her mother starts slipping away and she realizes she needs to move on in order to accomplish her potential, she reluctantly accepts an internship opportunity outside her hometown. Resigned to her fate to leave Columbus, Indiana, she is forced to reconcile with her future, her potential and her new life—because they must become her.

Are these two characters and their personal conflicts simply a result of unfortunate inclinations? In one, too strong a desire for change; and in the other, too deep an investment in familiarity? Or, is there something intrinsically dreadful in the modern process of coming-of-age? I believe the answer resides in this often-romanticized movement from childhood to adulthood, a crucible in which we must balance being tightly bound by our familiar past and pushed into an unfamiliar future—yet in the end, we become a synthesis of the familiar and the foreign, the past and the future, all reconciled.

Of the two protagonists, Lady Bird’s journey initially appears to be the more relatable for a modern, Western audience. She’s a rebellious youth to the point of nearly being a caricature: for example, the first scene begins with Lady Bird and her mother peacefully traveling home from a college visit, and ends with Lady Bird jumping out of a moving vehicle after being lectured on her given name, poor grades, and lack of respect for her parents. This argument is only the prelude to many more confrontations with her mother—a conflict which, on the surface, appears to reflect Lady Bird’s desire for change. It’s this relationship with her mother that reflects her relationship with her home, Sacramento: “I have to get out of Sacramento. It’s like the midwest of California,” she says to a friend. What makes Sacramento unlikable to Lady Bird is its familiarity. Her goal to get out of Sacramento is merely one step in a greater aspiration: to become someone new. The plot is an adventure through new friends, a new name, a new side of the country and more—all in an effort to become a new person.

However, change is rarely as ideal as it seems. In the case of Lady Bird, she learns that reckless change can destroy her relationships: first with her best friend, then her mother, and finally her own true identity. Halfway through the film, Lady Bird develops a relationship with a rebellious group of students at her high school and distances herself from her loyal companion Julia. The behavior of the new friend group is clearly juxtaposed with Lady Bird’s character; for example, when she first meets the primary boy of the group, she confidently and optimistically sticks out her hand, only to be met with the question “you shake?” In addition, she gets caught lying about her house, hobbies, and family. By the end of her senior year, Lady Bird regrets her decision and returns to Julia. It’s a return to familiarity, to Lady Bird’s genuine self, and not some artificial change she attempts to force on herself.

In like manner, Lady Bird’s ambition to leave Sacramento seemingly ends her relationship with her mother—a relationship which similarly represents familiarity, her upbringing, her genuine self; it is one’s mother, after all, that is the cause of one’s existence. Although sad music plays and her mother cries as Lady Bird begins her flight across the country (the music tracks are called “Leaving” and “Hope?” insinuating a swift change from optimism towards change, and then to nervous uncertainty), she still enters the new world with a will to liberate herself, to control her identity and her destiny; yet, all remaining hope is dissipated in the first and only dialogue she has with another character in her new life. “Do you believe in God?” Lady Bird asks a fellow partygoer. “No, it’s ridiculous,” he responds. “People call each other by names their parents gave them, but they don’t believe in God,” Lady Bird ponders. The statement still exposes a rebellious nature, a desire for change; however, it is paired alongside a much more traditional belief about God, certainly abnormal for the environment she’s entered, but reflective of her upbringing. The following interaction is a recognizable one: the boy asks Lady Bird her name. She responds with “Christine” and sticks out her hand. “You shake?”

Of course she does, because she is not Lady Bird—she is Christine, and always has been. Under the guise of her nickname, Lady Bird, she thought she could eliminate her past, her mother’s effect on her, her identity up to that point of change; nevertheless, the identity of her past is not something that merely existed in the past tense—it exists in her, present tense. Every decision she makes, even if it is choosing to change, stems from her past and her upbringing. There is no freedom from what happened, it cannot be changed in how it defines her. Everytime she sticks out her hand to shake another, she validates it. Her belief in God validates it. Her true name confirms it.

Before we look into her reconciliation, let’s look at her nearly perfect foil, Cassandra. What Cassandra wants in her life is change—she’s happy for her stable relationship with her mom, she loves her hometown of Columbus, Indiana, and she’s already avoided college with a gap year. The first instance she is confronted by the pressure to lean into change is when she runs into a friend while working at the library; the friend, after talking about her trip to Amsterdam, asks “so what about you? When are you leaving?” The presumptive question makes Cassandra uncomfortable, as she replies with “Uh, to where?” “To school, to anywhere,” the girl replies, “c’mon Casey, I mean you of all people should be in school. You already missed a year, you can’t keep putting it off.” This presents the most ironic difference in Cassandra and Lady Bird’s situations: while Lady Bird wants to leave home while residing in an environment hostile to that change, Cassandra wants to stay, yet cannot help but be pressured into leaving. In an era where about 60% of recent high school graduates go directly to college, it is seemingly not viable to stay home as an academics-oriented person. To an extent, we are living in Cassandra’s world—a world in which the need for changes confronts you on every side.

Much like Lady Bird, Cassandra’s situation can be understood well through her relationship with her mother. Cassandra and her mother have a strange dynamic, with the daughter filling the role of caretaker, rather than the mother. She cooks her mom’s meals; Cassandra drives her mom to and from work; Cassandra checks in on her mom when she doesn’t respond to her phone; we even learn through dialogue that Cassandra had to care for her meth-addicted mother after her mother’s breakup. Unlike Lady Bird, Cassandra is not the dependent in this relationship. Her and her mother are at best peers, and at worst reversed in their hierarchy. Cassandra has nothing left to learn from her mother, nothing to lose by moving on—yet, through the film, what is her excuse for not accepting an internship offer from a world-class architect and Yale professor? “I really think I should stay with my mom.” 

In the end, Cassandra must realize the value of her offer and move on—she must realize the potential she bears, her academic discipline, and her blooming passion for architecture. After her mother repeatedly bails on their plans together and lies about working late into the night, Cassandra experiences the dread of stagnation—her peers have all moved away, her mom (the last real relationship anchoring her to Columbus) has ghosted her, and the modernist buildings of Columbus become repetitive reminder of her past hardships. Her hometown, which was once a sanctuary, is now empty; a fact further felt by the modernist architecture of Columbus. The transparent, glass walls meant to showcase the activity going on inside the buildings, show sparsely any people—only fluorescent lights and empty space.

As Cassandra leaves Columbus, sobbing on her way to her new life, the audience is not given an answer as to whether the change is good—the transition, at least, appears dreadful. Rather, the question certainly acknowledged is “was the change necessary?” and the answer is an unequivocal yes.

This conclusion returns us to the question of Lady Bird’s conclusion, and its value. If change is necessary for Cassandra, then perhaps the answer is the same for Lady Bird. To become a well-ordered adult, one must find peace with one’s past or the open possibility of one’s future. It’s a dreadful process—we distance ourselves from what made us and enter an unlimited and unfamiliar realm of possibility; yet, we’re simultaneously given the ability to exert more will over what we do, what influences us and how we influence others. We’re given potential, and an open check to realize it. As students of Hillsdale college, we have made the plunge into a new world—we did it with nervousness, or sadness, or optimism, or appreciation, or fear, or anticipation, or all at once; but in the end, the change was necessary. Change is the crux of coming to age, a tool that pushes us to mend our past and our future.

As Lady Bird wakes up in a hospital bed from a drunken night out, she sees a mother, sitting silently with her injured child. A reminder of home. She leaves, and wanders the sidewalks of this unfamiliar east coast city, before hearing a familiar sound—church bells. She approaches and enters the church, only to be confronted by another familiar sound from her days at Catholic school—the chapel choir, singing harmoniously. They are singing “Rosa Mystica,” a devotion to Mary, mother of God. She leaves the church and dials on her phone:

“It’s me, Christine. It’s the name you gave me. It’s a good one.”

After she explains her love for Sacramento and gratitude for her mother, she closes the phone. Was the change a good one? Is this coming of age pleasant? No, but it was necessary. As Christine cries and the screen fades to black, a slow, droning, melancholic song plays in the background. The title of the song is, “Reconcile.”

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Tobias Klooster is a Sophomore studying English and Philosophy.