The Oddly Relatable Characters in Greta Gerwig Movies

By David Young · July 3, 2023

Everyone knows that the best writer-directors are those who understand and get to know their actors — because actors become your characters. No one makes this more apparent than Greta Gerwig, whose own background as an actor has developed her into a filmmaker that pushes for verisimilitude — highlighting her cast’s performances rather than seeking a lavish technical display in her vision. So, when you’re looking for great characters, you’ll find them in Greta Gerwig movies.

From period pieces that feel utterly modern like Little Women to slice-of-life pictures of the charms and frustrations of youth like Lady Bird — or even a fish-out-of-water blockbuster starring the world’s most famous doll like Barbie, Gerwig’s characters are young women in America (however long ago they may have lived) often finding their footing in journeys that lead to adulthood. We’ve put together a Script Collection of Greta Gerwig movies that you must read if you want to learn something wonderful about writing characters.

Scripts from this Article

Lady Bird

Frances Ha

Mistress America

Little Women

Lady Bird

Lady Bird is a collection of moments capturing the life of a high-school senior — a perfectly poised piece to portray the skillful performances that are given by both Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf in particular. In a life defined by hard work and hard times, the titular character’s final year of high school demonstrates her own tumultuous coming of age while featuring very visible, moving complexity in other characters such as Lady Bird’s parents.

Of all Greta Gerwig movies, this one uses motivators like friendship, college, and romance to delve into the souls of the story’s people more so than the events of the narrative. It’s through these events — such as breaking off or repairing meaningful relationships — that Gerwig’s script carries the weight of what “growing up” really looks like. Other pressures worm their way into the narrative to depict a more dimensional look at life, as things like recent terrorism are cited as reasons to take advantage of the opportunities Lady Bird has ahead of her.

Lady Bird (2017)

Alongside these pressures, the ups and downs of her relationship with her mother spur Lady Bird on a huge inward journey while she seeks something different from the life she now lives — and ultimately, a sense of gratitude for what her parents have given her. That level of depth is a trademark of Greta Gerwig’s writing and directing — achieved by her pursuit of closeness like the time she spent with Lady Bird’s cast in her own home some weeks before production.

Gerwig explained in an interview with Collider how the character Lady Bird wasn’t solely her creation, but one that was born out of her collaboration with actor Saoirse Ronan:

I feel like the character of Lady Bird was really something that we made together. It feels like a real creative act that we both did. I wasn’t like Lady Bird. I was a much more rule-following, straight-laced, freaked out kid. I never made anyone call me by a different name and I didn’t dye my hair bright red. I just wasn’t like that. So, the character on the page was a way for me to explore things that weren’t really accessible to me, as a person. I was creating a heroine that I had not been able to be, even though she’s a flawed heroine who can be a jerk sometimes. But then, when Saoirse started reading the lines, there was a complete commitment with total sincerity, and it was funny because she was never playing the humor. She was playing the honesty, and that was uproariously funny.

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Frances Ha

Another one the Greta Gerwig movies about achieving dreams and their seeming impossibility, Frances Ha is a project written by Gerwig and her partner, Noah Baumbach, who directed the film. In this narrative, you’ll notice a distinctly different focal character, a working professional — namely, a dancer — rather than someone who is coming of age. That doesn’t mean that protagonist Frances Halladay isn’t forced to reckon with the world in new ways.

Frances Ha (2012)

In fact, she’s thrown head-first into one “adulting” catastrophe after another, with unreliable friends, near homelessness, and a rude awakening regarding her professional life. The intense-but-charismatic reality of Frances’s own situation hits home for audiences thanks to the coordination that Greta Gerwig brings to her performance-driven writing. Starring in the film and offering unique insights from her creative role for the narrative, Gerwig’s own stamp on the film is in that verisimilitude she creates in every vulnerable moment. This contribution makes Frances Ha a more real and satisfying picture of life than most movies of the same genre ever accomplish.

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Mistress America

Mistress America reaffirms Greta Gerwig’s ability to transform literary ideation — in short, a creation — into a compelling performance. Yet another work she co-wrote with Baumbach, this film tackles ideas such as emotional investment as well as feelings like isolation. The film reaffirms Gerwig’s fascination with East Coast college life, with financial struggle, and with relationships that must recover from discord.

Mistress America (2015)

As Tracy, the protagonist, works against her own loneliness with a fast friend who’s soon to become family, the relationship blossoms in an organic way that characterizes the wildness of youth so well. It’s only through the course of rising tensions that true closeness can be forged, though — a common tenet of Greta Gerwig movies. This rings just as true in Mistress America, with Gerwig’s own character becoming a source and victim of such bond-building tensions with the protagonist.

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Little Women

While the original story of the March sisters has been around and adapted for ages, it’s a narrative that still contributes much to the utterly distinct notes of a Gerwig creation. As a recounting of what troubles and changes life carried in 19th-century New England, Gerwig’s adaptation stays true to the Alcott novel’s cultural impact while still forging forward with her own demonstration of artistic style. She workshopped the dialogue to “march” over itself — pun intended — creating a realistic, high pace between the characters as they speak.

Little Women (2018)

The young women of the cast were brought to life even further thanks to the care Greta Gerwig took to regularly rehearse with her actors for weeks before production began. Each sister possesses viewpoints unique to herself, and when expectations must meet gritty reality, those viewpoints start to shine.

Thanks to the research and inspiration she found in Louisa May Alcott’s own letters and other sources, Greta Gerwig was able to treat her cast to significantly well-crafted lessons in what life was like in the 1860s, who the author really was, and even how women of the age acted and spoke. Only a writer and director this devoted to verisimilitude could make the best of a 160-year-old novel. Gerwig’s storytelling methods deliver what she rightly calls a period piece that “feels light on its feet… effervescent and staccato.”

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An artist is someone who develops a vision through their medium of choice — and Greta Gerwig has had quite a few canvases to work on. Through acting, writing, and directing, she has tackled ideas like the transition to adult life, worldly struggles, and interpersonal bonds. Moreover, her works tend to look at these ideas with full-on diving gear as she ramps up the internal lenses that put people on the spot. Her creations highlight the reality of a character — rather than a situation.

With movies that are made to feel like memories or designed to deliver frustration with every note of satisfaction, Gerwig announces herself through her writing style just as much as she does with her attentive, actor-first mindset during production. She delivers, first and foremost, people on screen who feel real and lived-in — a mark that’s hard to replicate