Lady Bird Structure Breakdown

I’m incredibly excited to introduce a new set of contributors to The Hutch Files—my students in the Storytelling 4 class in the MFA Program at the University of Central Arkansas. Over the next month, I’ll be posting their structure breakdowns on some of their own favorite films. I think they’ve done an incredible job and bring some great insights to the films they’ve chosen. Please see their individual bylines at the top of each post. So here we go:

Written and directed by Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird has stolen our hearts since 2017. Starring Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf, this coming-of-age dramedy tells its touching story through a unique structure that revolves around girlhood and, of course, boys. 

As always, these breakdowns contain SPOILERS, and are only recommended if you've already seen the movie. You can check the introduction to these breakdowns, to get an overview of the process and philosophy.

The Basics

Director: Greta Gerwig
Writer: Greta Gerwig
Release Date: 2017
Runtime: 94 minutes
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4925292/

Movie Level Goals

Protagonist: Lady Bird
External Goal: Have a boyfriend
SUCCESS | FAILURE | MIXED
Internal Goal: To grow up 
SUCCESS | FAILURE
Relationship Goal: Be accepted by her mother
SUCCESS(?) | FAILURE

Goal Relationship: Lady Bird initially treats the External and Internal Goals as if they are dependent on each other, but eventually she realizes that she doesn’t need a boyfriend. This abandoning of the External Goal ultimately leads to the Internal Goal, which leads to the Relationship Goal of being accepted by her mother. 

Three Observations:

Observation #1: The Illusion of No Structure

It’s tempting to watch Lady Bird and leave under the assumption that there is no basic plot structure. There appears to be no clear-cut climaxes or starting/ending points of the acts, but such a thing does exist– that thing is boys. As stated above, Lady Bird’s External Goal is to have a boyfriend. She achieves this twice throughout the film and ultimately fails both times, which is what drives our plot along. 

The Inciting Incident of the film takes place the moment Lady Bird lays her eyes on Danny during auditions. Her quest is clear: make Danny her boyfriend. Of course, once she achieves her goal, it crashes and burns in her face when she catches Danny kissing a boy in the bathroom. Act 1 ends with Lady Bird and Julie crying in the car during the aftermath of this event. Act 2’s goal is to form a relationship with Kyle. Once again, Lady Bird achieves this goal only for it to bite back at her. Similar to the closing of Act 1, Act 2 ends with the aftermath of the relationship–this time it’s in the form of a real estate tour. With the pattern we’ve set up, it’d be safe to assume that there’s another boy waiting in Act 3, but there’s not. Instead, Lady Bird is now focusing on herself while trying to appeal to her mom. And it’s this internal goal, more than the external goal, that is at the heart of what the movie is about.

Observation #2: Three Goals

I think part of what muddies up the clarity of Lady Bird’s structure is the presence of three goals in the film. Normally, most films would have two goals– an External and an Internal. Lady Bird bends these rules by throwing a Relationship Goal into the mix.

Lady Bird initially treats the External Goal (boyfriend) and Internal Goal (grow up) as if they are dependent on each other.  But once Act 3 comes along, Lady Bird realizes that she doesn’t need a boyfriend. This leads to an abandoning of the External Goal and staying with the Internal Goal, which is what we can hope takes her to the achievement of her Relationship Goal of being accepted by her mother. 

Observation #3: Open-Endedness

Much to my dismay, Lady Bird closes out in an open-ended manner. Greta Gerwig set me up to be emotionally distraught throughout Act 3 to the point where my only hope at happiness would be a wholesome resolution between Lady Bird and her mother at the end of the film– which never happens. Instead, we wait as Lady Bird (now Christine) listens as the phone rings… and rings… and rings, until the film concludes itself in the form of a heartbreaking voicemail.  Will they fix their mother-daughter relationship? Or will Lady Bird remain alone in this new era of her life? Only Gerwig can tell.