You write about Sacramento so affectionately, with such care," a nun tells a young woman, Christine, in the lovely new American indie film Lady Bird, directed by Greta Gerwig. Christine responds with, "I guess I just pay attention to things." The nun, her school principal, asks, "Don't you think they are the same? Love and attention?" Lady Bird is a coming-of-age film that is lovingly attentive to the world of its central characters, a mother and daughter. Christine, in perpetual revolt against her mother, has decided to call herself Lady Bird, ("It's given by me to me" she says when asked if Lady Bird is her given name). It reminded me of the way Urdu poets choose a takhallus, often translated as nom de plume, but really more like an evocation of the poet's spirit. And, indeed, Lady Bird is about a young woman's search for some poetry in life.

Christine/Lady Bird is not extraordinary or exceptional. She can be shallow, petulant and comically self-serious. But she is passionate and sincere and searching for a way to have more, be more, imagine more. Though the familiar elements of teen movies - mean girls and caddish boys - are present in the film, they do not play out as a morality tale. Rather, everyone is flawed, confused, comical, sweet, foolish, innocent, unkind, sometimes wise - in other words, young.