Greta Gerwig (b. 1983)
Filed under the name Greta · May 9, 2026
Greta Gerwig directed "Lady Bird" and "Barbie," two movies about growing up and figuring out who you are, and from what I hear she's become one of the leading filmmaking voices of her whole generation. I'll admit I haven't seen either all the way through — my granddaughter made me watch bits of "Barbie" on her phone and I laughed more than I expected to. There's something to be said for a woman who takes something folks think is silly, like a doll, and finds the real feeling underneath it. I spent thirty-eight years trying to get third graders to find the feeling underneath a story too, so I recognize the instinct even if the venue's different. My advice to any young person with a gift like that has always been the same: don't let anybody tell you your way of seeing things doesn't count just because it's not the way they'd do it. Gerwig clearly didn't listen to anybody who told her that, and look what she made.