‘Lady Bird’ Trailer: Mom Vs. Teen Daughter In Greta Gerwig’s Helming Debut

“Lady Bird — is that your given name?” “Yeah.” “Why is it in quotes?” “I gave it to myself. It’s given to me by me.” Makes perfect sense.

Welcome to the first trailer for Lady Bird, writer-helmer Greta Gerwig’s directing debut that lit up Telluride with its premiere Friday. Ah, the epic and timeless struggle between strong-willed mom and equally strong-willed teenage daughter. It’s 2002 Sacramento, amid a rapidly shifting American economic landscape. High school senior Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) fights against but is exactly like her wildly loving, deeply opinionated and headstrong mother (recent Tony winner Laurie Metcalf), a nurse working tirelessly to keep her family afloat after Lady Bird’s father (Tracy Letts) loses his job.

Lady Bird wants to leave the California capital for college on the East Coast. Mom’s not too sure about that plan. “With your work ethic, you should just go to city college and then to jail and then back to city college and then maybe you’d pull yourself up and not expect every—” (watch the trailer to see what happens next.)

Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Beanie Feldstein and Lois Smith co-star in the film, produced by Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, and Evelyn O’Neill. A24, whose Moonlight is the reigning Best Picture Oscar champ, picked up rights to Lady Bird in July and will give it an awards push via a November 10 release date.

Check out the trailer above and tell us what you think.