“Catherine Called Birdy” is Lena Dunham’s second feature film of 2022, and they present a striking study in contrasts. “Sharp Stick” is a provocative and occasionally cringe-y examination of contemporary mores, particularly regarding sexuality—in other words, exactly what you’d expect from a Lena Dunham movie. “Birdy,” on the other hand, is a period piece based on a book and rated PG-13; it feels like a movie made as a conscious effort to prove that she’s more than you think. But that dichotomy also makes “Birdy” feel more calculating than it is; indeed, it’s a delightful step in Dunham’s artistic evolution, a work that both feels like something new and bears her distinctive voice.
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Dunham directed, produced, and wrote the screenplay, adapting the Newberry-winning children’s novel by Karen Cushman. It concerns Catherine—yes, called Birdy—a 14-year-old rebel played with engaging ferocity by “Game of Thrones” alum Bella Ramsey. She lives in the village of Stonebridge in medieval England and introduces her family and friends in spirited voice-over narration with accompanying on-screen text (“JUST TERRIBLE AND UGLY”). That narration is the text of a diary she keeps, an “account of my days for my brother, the monk.”
Like Cushman’s book, Dunham’s script gives attention to the details of period living—even, perhaps especially, the inappropriate ones. But its primary focus is more timeless: the struggles of being a weird teenage girl who keeps a lot of pets (hence her name), laughs at goofy stuff, hates her brother, hates her father, loves her mother, and is terrified by her first period (“I am dying, it is plain to see”). “What do you suppose about kissing?” she asks her best guy pal out of nowhere. “Might it not be as vile as we once thought?”
She hardly has time to ponder such questions before the narrative kicks into gear: though her parents have land and titles, they are going broke, and an advisor patiently explains to her father (Andrew Scott, first-rate) that “a proper union for your only daughter” would help “relieve your accumulated debt.” He barely hesitates a moment before side-eyeing Catherine and peppering her with questions like “Exactly how old are you?” and “What color is your hair? When it’s clean?”
And thus, her father begins bringing in potential suitors, whom she scares off with a proficiency and intensity that’s frankly impressive. Ultimately, she meets her match in the vilest of all the suitors, a “cave-dwelling troll” whom she nicknames “Shaggy Beard” and finds can withstand her tricks. “You thought I could outsmart you with tomfoolery,” he brays at her. “But what you didn’t realize is, I like the chase!” And with that, she punches him right in the face.
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“Catherine Called Birdy” is delightfully witty, irreverent, and modern-minded while carefully dodging the self-satisfaction and smugness that those descriptors can conjure up. (Ye old-timey covers of contemporary songs work better than they have any right to.) Dunham’s script is wickedly funny and packed with quotable dialogue; “Birdy, please do not joust with our crucified savior,” for example, or her gleeful pronouncement, to her friend, that “You’re so lucky your father is dead,” to which he replies, carefully, “Birdy, I’m still… actually… quite upset about that.”
There are so many good lines that even the day players get theirs; a Christmas pageant scene includes a Joseph who off-handedly reports, “There’s no room at the inn! What a crap inn.” But “Catherine Called Birdy” shines brightest when focusing on the complicated relationship between Birdy and her father, a home she (initially, at least) hates with her entire soul. You see why; he’s a real puke, an unapologetically lazy, ale-swilling good-timer, but Scott, rascal that he is, invests him with just enough sympathy. This man is doing his best (his best, but still), and this poor girl will not give him a moment’s peace; he has a pair of scenes involving real love and support late in the picture that land exactly as they should.
But the star performer here is Bella Ramsey, and she’s delightful, funny, and odd, striking a perfect balance between contemporary attitudes and period style. And frankly, that description fits the film as well. Dunham displays real growth as a filmmaker, not just in obvious, surface ways like the striking look (Laurie Rose is the cinematographer), sound (the music is by the great Carter Burwell), period settings, and dress. It’s the smoothness of the camerawork, the clarity of the compositions, the consistency of the performances, and most of all—and this has always been a tricky element for Dunham, up to and including the mostly successful “Sharp Stick”—the evenness of tone.
It would be easy to look at the origins and outcome of “Catherine Called Birdy” and worry that Dunham has softened her edge. But it’s still there, perhaps not as obvious but present nevertheless, and a line of Catherine’s dialogue late in the picture seems the most accurate summary: “My gratitude does not mean I have lost my fight.” [A]
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