She may have made her name with indie hits such as Lady Bird and Nights and Weekends, but Greta Gerwig’s move to directing a major blockbuster looks to have paid dividends: Barbie has smashed the Box Office, making $495 million worldwide in its first week.
The film, whose insane and wildly successful marketing campaign saw cities around the world turn pink, is set to be one of the biggest earners of 2023 (it’s already the 7th highest grossing film of the year) and many reviewers have been as swept up in the hype as the fans about the film: “One of the funnest and funniest movies ever made... Barbie is easily the comedy of the year,” said The Standard.
For Gerwig, Barbie became much more than just a challenging but incredibly fun gig – Gerwig reportedly saw it as a way to change the course of her career. “Her ambition is to be not the biggest woman director but a big studio director,” said Jeremy Barber, who works at the agency which represents Gerwig, to The New Yorker. “And Barbie was a piece of IP [intellectual property] that was resonant to her.”
But her transition to major director hasn’t come without criticism: “No matter what Gerwig has made, for me she is participating in the suffocation of multiplicity and oddness in art which allowed her to become the brilliant force that she did in the first place,” said The Standard.
Next up, Gerwig, who has just given birth to a son, is reimagining C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia for Netflix. According to a July interview with The New Yorker, Gerwig is signed up with the streamer to write and direct “at least” two films.
“I haven’t even really started wrapping my arms around it, but I’m properly scared of it, which feels like a good place to start,” said Gerwig speaking on the Inside Total Film podcast this month. “I think when I’m scared, it’s always a good sign.
“No, I’m terrified of it,” she added. “It’s extraordinary. And it’s exciting.”
As we watch Gerwig become one of Hollywood’s most sought-after talents, here’s our selection of the actor-writer-director’s best work to watch after Barbie, and before Narnia.
Directed by Gerwig
Nights and Weekends (2008)
“Not many people will like this film. I’m not even sure I liked it. It’s uneventful to the point of plotless, claustrophobically shot, maddeningly inarticulate,” said The Guardian, before giving Gerwig’s debut feature, which was being screened at SXSW, 7.5 out of 10.
The explanation for this contradictory review is that mumblecore – an indie genre defined by little-to-no action, uninspiring dialogues, and meandering plotlines – really isn’t for everyone.
But Gerwig was a master of the form, so much so that even her critics couldn’t help but be touched by her characters’ subtle sentimentality and quietly thought-provoking exchanges. In Nights and Weekends, which she co-wrote and co-directed alongside Joe Swanberg, tells the story of a couple in a long-distance relationship.
Lady Bird (2017)
Described by The Standard as a “stunningly acted, deceptively simple tragi-comedy”, Lady Bird tells the story of a woman’s turbulent relationship with her teenage daughter. Laurie Metcalf plays Marion, the hardworking and increasingly exasperated mother, while Saoirse Ronan plays Christine, aka Lady Bird, the ambitious and frustrated teen.
Gerwig became the fifth woman to ever be nominated for a Best Director Oscar for her work on the film: “I started crying and laughing and screaming,” she said to The Guardian about hearing the good news. “I remember very well when Sofia Coppola was nominated for best director and won best screenplay [for Lost in Translation in 2004] and what that meant to me.”
Lady Bird was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay – Gerwig also wrote the script.
Little Women (2019)
Little Women was a major moment for Gerwig: the film had a budget of $40 million – four times that of Lady Bird – and had a cast that was packed full of stars, including Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet (who was also in Lady Bird), Meryl Streep, James Norton, Louis Garrel and Chris Cooper. Gerwig managed to breathe new life into the beloved 1868 American novel by Louisa May Alcott, while remaining respectful to the original text, its ideas and sentiments.
“One-hundred-and-fifty-year-old literature never felt so alive,” said The Guardian. “Greta Gerwig’s jostling, clamouring adaptation of Little Women is a rare achievement.”
Starring Gerwig
Baghead (2008)
American filmmakers Jay and Mark Duplass direct this 2008 comedy horror starring Ross Partridge (Daisy Jones & the Six), Elise Muller, Greta Gerwig, and Steve Zissis (The Front Runner) as a group of struggling actors who go to a cabin in the woods to write a film script. As is so often the case with cabins in woods on film, things get creepy very quickly. One of the group’s plot ideas – about a baddie whose signature look is a bag over his head – seems to start coming true. And for those who like the sound of this, it is landing on MUBI on July 23.
Frances Ha (2012)
Frances Ha was the film that introduced Gerwig to a wider audience. Its director, Noah Baumbach, had met Gerwig when he cast her in his 2010 comedy Greenberg, the same year that his wife, Jennifer Leigh, filed for divorce. Baumbach and Gerwig then co-wrote Frances Ha, a film about a 27-year-old dancer trying to get a handle on adult life. With most of the screen focused on Gerwig, the success of the film turned on whether the audience bought into her charm – which it did.
“Frances Ha is a love letter made public, a love letter that thankfully is mutual, Gerwig performing for Baumbach just as much as he is doting on her as director,” said The Standard. “Frances Ha might well strike some viewers as ridiculously twee and tiresomely indulgent to its immature heroine. Not me, though. I’m happy to be enchanted.”
