"Upbeat, charming coming-of-age comedy about a high-school senior whose ambition exceeds her family’s modest circumstances. The specific time period (the early 2000s, when Gerwig would have graduated from high school) pretty much confirm that the story has autobiographical components. Ronan plays Christine, a girl with the kind of wit, zeal, and hormones that make her quickly outgrow her small suburban home “on the wrong side of the tracks” and Catholic school upbringing in boring ol’ Sacramento. The film’s got a slew of teenage-girl drama beats—dumping her bestie for the popular kid, dating the cool guy who ends up not being so cool, screaming at her mom who’s trying to do right by her but who’s also annoyingly cloying—but somehow Gerwig manages to make the many emotional arcs and moving narrative parts all work flawlessly."