Lady Bird (USA, 2017)
Coming of age drama. An obnoxious and self-absorbed high school senior has to deal with major decisions in her life: her first love, choosing a career and a college, a dysfunctional relationship with her mother, as well as her delusion of being artistically gifted. Nothing special for many teenagers you'll say and it's true.
What makes Lady Bird different is her salvaging qualities: she is true to her self, can show empathy to others, and shows an understanding for what is truly important in life.
This film has a lot going for it: great performances by Saoirse Ronan (the protagonist) and Laurie Metcalf (her mother), a script that develops characters in depth, gives a lot of insights in teenage psychology and has smart dialogues, and good direction.
If something rubbed me off the wrong way is the way the writer/director (Greta Gerwig) keeps patting on the back her on screen alter ego . You get a sense that the film-maker has too big an idea of her own creation, something which was captured in her saying "I sought to offer a female counterpart to tales like The 400 Blows and Boyhood." The 400 Blows reference made me cringe hard.
Far from being a counterpart to a heartbreaking critique of a morally bankrupt educational system, Lady Bird is a lot more like the female version of Superbad (minus the comedy).
Thelma (Norway, 2017) [contains spoilers]
Horror film about a girl with supernatural powers that bring disaster to those around her. There is something about Scandinavia and witches: trials that ended with burning women on a stake went on until well into the 17th century. This might have something to do with the recurrence of this theme in their cinema: think Dreyer's Day of Wrath and Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice.
Thelma is a good horror movie that reveals its secrets slowly and knows how to build suspense. My main complaint is that this is horror for horror's sake and the story fails to serve as an allegory for something greater.
Two final remarks: Elie Harboe is both beautiful and a fine actress. Second, IMHO some critics misunderstood the film: this is not a lesbian love story, it is clear that the protagonist first forces her classmate to fall in love with her and then kills her. As for the last sequence, where the two of them reunite, my personal interpretation is that this is a fantasy played out in the protagonist's mind.
The Man who Laughs (USA, 1928)
Silent melodrama with horror elements. An adaptation of the eponymous Victor Hugo novle, it tells the story of a disfigured man with a permanent grin and his love for a blind girl in 17th cent. England. They work together in a freak show, earning money from people who laugh at them. But at the same time, their good natured characters and honest love gain the sympathy of many around them.
Beyond that, the story is too complex to follow in detail. Suffice it to say, this is a true masterpiece. The director, the German Paul Leni, brought to Hollywood the powerful visuals of expressionism and created a dark dream. Incidentally, this film provided the inspiration for the creation of the comic book character of Joker.