Ladybird, Ladybird (film)

In a London karaoke bar some time around 1987, Maggie Conlan, a woman with a troubled past, meets Paraguayan immigrant Jorge and has a drink with him. During their conversation we learn about the lives we both had. In flashback, we learn that she was born in Liverpool and witnessed her father beating her mother. Later on, we hear that she was eventually sexually abused by her father and taken into care. As an adult she was beaten up several times by her ex-boyfriend Simon. She has four children by four different fathers and all of her children are in care. Jorge is a Paraguayan who is afraid to return to his own country for fear of persecution there.

Maggie goes on to make a relationship with Jorge, being impressed with his poetry and his history. Her relationship with him is initially a tentative one because of her previous experience with her earlier boyfriend. The film goes on to show her time in a women's refuge. One night as she was singing in a club she was told that there had been an incident at her home; when she got there she found that there had been a fire at the refuge and her children were injured. The local authority then took her children into care and Maggie now blames Simon for having her children taken from her, but she says she shares some of the blame.

Maggie's relationship with Jorge becomes more intense, but more strained, as Maggie's mental stresses become apparent. They set up home together, and have a daughter, but she is soon taken from them by the local authority under a Place of Safety order on the grounds that she is an unreliable mother with "low intellect" - social workers arrive at the flat while Maggie's sister and nieces are visiting. Jorge is threatened with deportation to Paraguay from the UK, because he has been illegally employed, but he is allowed to stay in the UK because of his good character, and the plea he makes to the court. Maggie and Jorge have another baby and she too is removed by social workers, who arrive at the hospital when the baby is barely a day old. Maggie becomes distraught and has to be sedated.

Maggie's attempts to regain custody of her two younger children are unsuccessful, and she also sees her oldest son advertised for adoption in a local newspaper.

The couple continue their lives together and the film closes with a caption:

Maggie and Jorge have had three more children whom they have been allowed to keep. They have been given no access to their first two daughters. Maggie says that she thinks every day of all her lost children.

• Crissy Rock as Maggie Conlan
• Vladimir Vega as Jorge
• Sandie Lavelle as Mairead
• Mauricio Venegas as Adrian
• Ray Winstone as Simon
• Claire Perkins as Jill
• Jason Stracey as Sean
• Luke Brown as Mickey
• Lily Farrell as Serena
• Scottie Moore as Maggie's father
• Linda Ross as Maggie's mother
• Rosemary Frankau as Lawyer
• Yvonne Riley as Lead Social Worker
• Darren Jobson extra in pizza scene
• ((Colin Carr)) bar man

Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively gave the film an approval rating of 71%, based on 7 reviews with an average rating of 7.2/10.[4]

• 7th – Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News[5]
• 12th – Janet Maslin, The New York Times[6]
• Honorable mention – Michael MacCambridge, Austin American-Statesman[7]

• Ladybird, Ladybird at IMDb
• Ladybird, Ladybird at AllMovie
• Ladybird, Ladybird at the BFI's Screenonline