Gerwig, Kirke delight in Baumbach’s “Mistress America”
– FILM REVIEW By Cate Marquis –
Director Noah Baumbach offers a charming, quirky indie-film comedy with “Mistress America.” College student Tracy (Lola Kirke), who hopes to become a writer, is having trouble connecting with her fellow students. Feeling lost and alone in New York City, she calls her mother, who urges her daughter to Mom’s fiance’s 29-year-old daughter Brooke (Greta Gerwig), who lives in New York, arguing that they will soon be step sisters and should meet before the wedding anyway. Tracy is skeptical that the grown woman would want to hang out with a college student but Brooke invites her out. The two quickly become inseparable, with Tracy seeming to have a kind of hero-worship of the attractive, likable but unfocused Brooke.
Brooke seems to glow with admiring “baby sister” Tracy in her wake, as if she needs the entourage. Brooke is full of ideas, if not specific plans or follow-through. Her latest project is a restaurant. Brooke as a location in a neighborhood on the edge of a boom, and backers to finance it. What she doesn’t have is much in else, envisioning a place called “Mom’s” as a hip hangout, but no idea for the menu or even a chef. Or maybe it will be a restaurant with a hair salon on the side.
“Mistress America” is Baumbach’s most appealing film to date, thanks in part to Greta Gerwig’s charming, funny performance as a beautiful loser. Lola Kirke is excellent as well, a sharply focused person who is a perfect contrast to Brooke, but with all the uncertainty and mixed feelings of a young college student. In fact, all the actors are good in this film, with an assortment of unique, striking characters. The script is clever, with lots of entertaining banter and a parade of smaller characters zooming in and out of Brooke’s orbit. At times, “Mistress America” has the feel of a Noel Coward comedy, with fast paced dialog and characters coming in and going out of a scene. Baumbach combines some elements from his last film, “While We’re Young” and a bit of “Frances Ha,” which also starred Gerwig, with an earlier, less likeable film (also starring his lead from “While We’re Young” Ben Stiller,” the unsettling “Greenberg.” But while the aging loser in “Greenberg” is both mean and repulsive, the just-under-30 Brooke is an appealing, even sweet character, although she is just as unsuccessful if talented Like “While We’re Young,” “Mistress America” features a relationship between younger and older characters who have different ideas about the nature of their relationship.
Funny, smart, quirky “Mistress America” is a refreshing change from pratfall humor, a winner from a writer/director who has the skill whether delivering comedy or drama.
© Cate Marquis
