As a book, the story is more broadly focused on Catherine's daily life and observations about her family and about coming of age. As an adaptation of a children's book, which is written in a diary style, the film makes the choice to streamline Catherine's conflict down to whom, if anyone, her parents will force her to marry.

The prospects are old, or ugly, and in short, are not at all what a young girl would choose for herself. But, as the only daughter of the titled-yet-poor Lord Rollo ( Andrew Scott) and Lady Aislinn ( Billie Piper), she is destined to be given away in marriage. Catherine's primary struggle is that despite wanting a life of travel, adventure, education, and really just a desire to be young and mischievous a little while longer with her friends. That, however, is where the similarities end.

RELATED: ‘Catherine Called Birdy’: Release Date, Cast, Trailer, and Everything You Need to Know We saw this in the prologue to Drew Barrymore's Ever After, and we see it again here. She's the sort of troublemaking tween girl who rolls in the mud and plays with the barn animals in a way that doesn't befit a 'lady' but is very reminiscent of what a 90s idea of an independent, unconventional girl looks like. Fortunately, Catherine Called Birdy, a film with a loosely similar premise does a much better job at conveying the frustrations of a young woman considered little more than property in the eyes of her father or the law.Ĭatherine Called Birdy, based on the children's novel by Karen Cushman, follows a year in the life of the titular Catherine ( Bella Ramsey). That film was The Princess, and it utterly failed in its task to offer a modern 'strong woman' perspective on a tale we have been told time and time again. Earlier this year, a film was released following a young woman in the distant past whose family desired to marry her off for material purposes, a fate that she wished to escape.

Catherine birdy book