Ladybird, Ladybird movie review (1995)

The woman's name is Maggie, and she is played by a former barmaid and stand-up comic named Crissy Rock who has never acted before. It is the strongest performance in any film of the last 12 months; seeing the movie for the first time at the Telluride film festival in September 1994, I walked out of the theater and saw Rock standing there, and wanted to comfort her, she had embodied Maggie's suffering so completely. The Oscar nominations will be incomplete if they do not take this performance into account.

If you hang around bars where a lot of steady drinking goes on, you will have met someone like Crissy. She is short, blond, pudgy, in her 30s, with a nice face tending to fat. She's a "character." On karaoke night, she grabs the mike and brings down the house. She's good company, tells jokes, gets bawdy, holds her own.

She likes to laugh, but there is sadness inside, and after too many drinks she may start to sob. She's in the bar looking for comfort, reassurance, a sense of belonging, and so she's a pushover for guys who buy her a drink and seem to care.

One night she meets a man who really does care. His name is Jorge (Vladimir Vega), and he is an immigrant from Paraguay with "political problems" at home. He seems almost improbably nice, and for once she dares to hope: Maybe this man will treat her better than the others, who were abusive, irresponsible, drunks and dopeheads. He watches her singing, and is attracted to her spirit. Soon they are a couple, and she begins to hope.

We see how hopeless she is as a mother - as a responsible adult. She was abused as a child, never learned basic survival and social skills, and exists in chaos, moving from one flat to another, treating each meal as a fresh challenge, as if food itself baffled her. We see her exploding; she has a fierce temper, a knack for blowing up when she should lay low. One day she does something that is shockingly irresponsible, and her four children are taken away from her by the social workers. She deserves to lose them. But because "Ladybird, Ladybird" sees her so clearly, we can understand why she acted as she did. Not forgive, but understand.

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